Employment issues require assistance of employment law solicitors

Posted by maryparker on November 21st, 2012

Anyone could have problems related to employment and find out that some clauses of the contract, considered perfect until that moment, are ambiguous. In such situations legal advice provided by employment law solicitors is indispensable. However, prevention is recommended and therefore the wisest action before signing an employment contract would be to have it revised by an employment contract lawyer. This is supposed to avoid future problems, such as malevolent interpretation of certain clauses. As employment problems are very sensitive and could lead to labour conflicts, they should be avoided by all means and having fair employment contracts is the first important element.

Getting advice from employment contract lawyers protects employees against abuse. For example, if we consider redundancy, in certain countries no payment is associated with it. Consequently, if your duties are redistributed to other persons or are simply cancelled, the company is not bound to pay you anything.

Since there is no implied legal right to redundancy payments, employees have only limited opportunities to claim compensation for redundancy. They include express terms of the employment contract as well as the company’s policy or procedures manual. Besides that, an applicable industrial instrument and legislation should also be taken into account.

If the company has a policy, there is no guarantee that employees would receive redundancy payments and therefore they should ask for legal assistance as soon as possible. In the case of Australian legislation, although there is no implied payment right in case of redundancy, a general statutory right to redundancy payment exists since 2010. The general rule is that the statutory right to redundancy payment counts the employee’s years of service from the date the right commenced.

The right to redundancy payments is limited and therefore employees are expected to address the redundancy issue at the time of the initial appointment or at the moment when the employee’s duties or position is supposed to be varied. Eventually, a redundancy entitlement may be confirmed during the employment before having raised any issue related to a possible redundancy.

When an employee thinks that his/her position might be made redundant, getting legal advice from an employment contract lawyer is mandatory. A copy of the employment contract as well as a copy of a workplace policy regarding redundancy supposed to apply to his/her employment.

If the contractual right to redundancy payments is missing, the employee may still be entitled to the right for breach of contract and equally to a notice of termination claim. Considering all these aspects, when an employee fears that his/her employment might be made redundant, he/she must be careful and do nothing that could jeopardise a breach of contract or a claim for notice on finishing the employment. In addition, employees should look for professional assistance provided by employment law solicitors.

Employment contract lawyers are the key element for a perfect employment contract. For any employment related problems employment law solicitors should be asked for legal assistance.