Case Study on Fair Work Law

Case Study on Fair Work Law
Name
Institution

Scope of the Introduction
• The study will focus on the following aspects;
- Background information
- Aspects of fair work laws
- The Queensland legislation
- Case scenario
- the Australian Human Right Commission
- Impacts of discrimination
- Recommendations

Background Information
• What is Fair Work Law in Australia?
- The legislation is aimed at governing the
relationship between the employer and
employees
- It governs how the employees are treated

Aspects of Fair Work Law
• The law is aimed at;
- Providing safety net of employee minimum
requirements
- Preventing discrimination against employees
- Promotes flexible working arrangements for
the employees
- Fair treatment of the employees

Queensland legislation
• According to the Queensland
legislation bullying behaviors
include;
- Abuse
- Intimidation
- humiliation on the basis of;
gender,
 age,
race,
religion (Ttofi & Farrington,
2009)

Cont.…. • The national and state laws
in Australia advocate for
two main issues;
- equal employment
opportunities
- fair treatment for all people
in their workplace (Stewart,
2011).

Scenario of the Case
• After a thorough study of
Queensland anti-
discrimination and
bullying legislation and
the relevant Fair Work
Australia laws, result
shows that;
- Vikram has breached the
relevant legislation that
protects employees from
unfair discrimination

Bridging the Law
• One way through which Vikram has breached
the Queensway anti-discrimination laws is;
- challenging Rictor authority publicly simply
because she is a woman.
- humiliating Rictor in front of his collogues by
making derogatory remarks about her in
several staff meetings.

Australian Human Right Commission
• This Commission provides guidelines for
selection and recruitment process to the
employees (Stewart, 2011).
• Purpose: to help them hire workers fairly
without any discrimination.
• Advice to CEO; he should follow these
procedures to avoid such problems in the
future

Cont.…
• The laws state that all
people should be given
equal opportunities as
long as they are
qualified regardless of
their gender.

Impacts of Discrimination
• Discrimination against employees because of
their gender can;
- cost an organization resources & time
- also destroy its reputation
- Legal action against the management
• However, it can also be challenging to meet
the demands of all the employees.

Impact to the organization
• Sacking Rictor and compensating her to solve
the issue may not be a bad idea
• It may undermine the company’s reputation
since the firm does not respect women.
• Failure to listen to Vikram may lead to other
problems such as conflicts between him and
Rictor because he is supposed to report to her.

Cont.…

Possible Solutions
• The most likely implications to the Bengal firm;
- should Rictor decide to report the harassment
to Fair Work Commission in Australia,
- Impact: the company will have to compensate
her total of $250,000 through the court order.
- Suitable solution: Visa to solve this issue out of
court because it will help save the company
time and money.

Unsuitable Actions
• Firing Pauline will not help solve future conflicts
in the future.
• appropriate action: let her complete her 12
months then Vikram can take over as the Chief
Operating Officer from there.
• Impact: paints a lousy picture of the firm to
other team members because they will think
that the CEO is favoring those who come from
his region and men

Preventing Discrimination by management
• To achieve this, the CEO will have to;
- Training to raise awareness about bullying and
harassment
- make it clear to all employees that bullying is
not accepted and will not be tolerated at
Paddington Engineering firm
- identifying all behaviors will be a right way of
solving future conflicts (Reisel, 2015).

What Vikram could have done differently
• The best action he could have taken was to;
- seek advice from his colleagues and his boss
on how to handle the issue without causing
any alarm.
- Showed respect to Pauline
- he does not understand employees rights at
the workplace.

Recommendations
• It is necessary to put down anti-discrimination
procedures for the employees in the new firm
in the newly purchased Paddington
Engineering firm in Australia
• Impact: it will help to increase productivity
and efficiency since the employees will be
aware of how they are supposed to relate in
the workplace.

Conclusion
• It is necessary for business owners to adopt
fair treatment for employees in the workplace
irrespective of the gender
• Any employees who is discriminated is eligible
to peruse legal actions again any employer for
unfair treatment

References
• Reisel, L. (2015). The Meaning of Ethnic Equality in
Scandinavian Anti-Discrimination Legislation. Nordic
Journal of Migration Research, 5(1). doi: 10.2478/njmr-
2014-0023
• Stewart, A. (2011). Fair Work Australia and the Legacy of
the Commission. Journal of Industrial Relations, 53(5),
551-555. doi: 10.1177/0022185611419606
• Ttofi, M., & Farrington, D. (2009). What works in
preventing bullying: effective elements of anti bullying‐
programmes. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace
Research, 1(1), 13-24. doi: 10.1108/17596599200900003