Employment Relations: Analyzing the SPC Ardmona Dispute Solution

This report provides an analysis of the SPC Ardmona dispute in Australia, focusing on the closure of the company in 2014 and its implications for employment relations. It examines the core of the dispute, including financial problems, import competition, and the potential loss of jobs, as well as the role of the Victorian government and the Fair Work Commission in attempting to resolve the issues. The report highlights the findings of the Productivity Commission, which revealed long-term reductions in demand and export volumes. Key aspects of the dispute, such as redundancy pay and sick leave cashing out, are also discussed. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of stakeholder satisfaction and the role of government intervention in assisting the company. The report provides insights into the challenges faced by SPC Ardmona and the strategies employed to address them.

Running head: EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
Employment Relations
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
Executive summary
The following paper is discussing about the solution of the SPC Ardmona dispute in the
Australian context and ways by which the problems were solved. The Fair Work Commission
had a say in this matter because the Australian government had to come up to the aid of the
organization and donate an amount of money to save it.

2EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
The core of the dispute....................................................................................................................3
Findings of the report.......................................................................................................................4
The solution of the dispute and the role of stakeholders.................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................6

3EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
Introduction
The dispute regarding SPC Ardmona was regarding their closure in the year 2014 was a
very crucial thing in the history of Australian employment relations. The situation was so crucial
that many of the employees feared to lose their jobs. This dispute was solved by the interference
of the Australian government by granting some amount of money to make the company operate
in its industry. The Fair Work Commission has also acted positively to revive the organization to
start again.
The core of the dispute
Thee parent company of SPC Ardmona was Coca-Cola Amatil but the organization was
suffering from various problems in the business operations (Spc.com.au 2017). The problem was
such a huge one that the Victorian Government led by Tony Abbott had planned to help the
company with $100 to revive the financial conditions of the company that helped them to survive
and operate within the industry. The company has been a major producer of processed fruit in
Australia. This company is the owner of various brands like Goulburn Valley, IXL, SPC,
Ardmona and Taylors (Spc.com.au 2017).
As reporting to Justice Ross, it can be said for working for Fair Work Competition that
SPC Ardmona had complained to the federal Victorian government about the unfair import
competition in the market and the Productivity Commission had reviewed the potential viability
of the company (Spc.com.au 2017). The Productivity Commission reported that the importing of
processed food products had suffered a number of faults as the finding of the Safeguards Inquiry.
The stakeholders of the company were disturbed at these reports because the main sufferers were
the people like the customers and suppliers and local distributors (Fassin 2012).

4EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
Findings of the report
The report published by the Commission stated that the company SPC Ardmona was
suffering from the long-term reductions in the demand for processed food in the Australian
market. The export volumes were lower as well and the growth rate of the company was stopped.
As a result, they needed to reduce the expenses behind the production process and this led them
to be unemployed some of the employees. This was really a setback for the employees and the
situation got heated up regarding the cashing out of sick leaves and redundancy pay (Fair Work
Ombudsman 2017).
The solution of the dispute and the role of stakeholders
One of the major things that had caused the problems was the fact about the redundancy
pay and sick leave cashing out. The company did not want to approve more than 10 sick leaves
for an employee but the Fair Work Ombudsman had stated some new regulations saying that an
employee should be given a four week notice for termination and 16 weeks for redundancy pay
(Fair Work Ombudsman 2017). SPC Ardmona was only able to present a 2.5 percent increase in
the wages that was below than others. They could not give proper amount of wages as the
production costs were going too high. This is why their market shares went down and the
stakeholders were badly affected (Noble 2017).
Conclusion
The paper can be concluded by saying that the ailing condition of SPC Ardmona was
rescued by the federal Australian government and they noticed the problems and they decided to
help the organization to come up with new ideas with the help of the government money. The

5EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
different problems could be solved in different ways because some of them are internal. SPC
Ardmona needs to satisfy their stakeholders properly to stay alive in the market.

6EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
References
Fair Work Ombudsman. (2017). Fair Work Ombudsman. [online] Available at:
https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ [Accessed 24 Sep. 2017].
Fassin, Y., 2012. Stakeholder management, reciprocity and stakeholder responsibility. Journal of
Business Ethics, 109(1), pp.83-96.
Noble, D., 2017. Forces of production: A social history of industrial automation. Routledge.
Spc.com.au. (2017). SPC Ardmona - Home. [online] Available at: https://www.spc.com.au/
[Accessed 24 Sep. 2017].

7EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS