Tweet

Consultancy company penalised for AWA duress

Written by: Jason Donnelly

Article Overview: The Federal Magistrates Court has found an IR consultancy company jointly liable with an employer for applying duress to an employee in relation to an AWA.

Consultancy company penalised for AWA duress

In this case, an employer contracted a consultancy company to assist in offering AWAs to transferring employees after the employer took over a supermarket business. A transferring employee was interviewed by the consultancy company and was offered an AWA. The employee claimed to have raised a number of concerns in relation the terms and conditions in the AWA, including the absence of penalty rates and the existence of a probation period. Despite these concerns, the employee was told by the consultancy company that she would not be employed if she did not sign the AWA.

The Court held that the consultancy company and the employer had jointly developed a plan to offer standard AWAs with set terms and conditions. There was no room for the employee to negotiate different terms and conditions under the AWA, or a different industrial instrument. The transferring employee had to sign the AWA to keep her position in the company. In addition, if the employee accepted the AWA, she would have been subject to a 3 month probation period for her current role. The Court found that in these circumstances, there was application of duress by the consultancy company and the employer.

Both the employer and the consultancy company were penalised $6,700 each and were jointly and severally liable for $983.40 compensation to the employee. Although the consultancy company was a services company engaged by the employer, the Court ordered the same penalty because the consultancy company had been “integrally involved in the determination of the relevant strategic and operational steps associated with offering the AWA.”

HR Tip:

The ability of an employer to offer AWAs to employees ceased on 28 March 2008. Employers who used AWA’s in their business as at 1 December 2007 can now use Individuals Transitional Employment Agreements (ITEAs). Importantly, the law prohibits the application of duress in connection with the making of an ITEA. The law specifically states that it is not duress for an employer to make the employment of a prospective employee conditional upon the employee entering into an ITEA. However, this protection for employers does not apply in the case of a transferring employee. Employers, IR Consultants and advisers will need to take care to ensure that duress is not applied to employees when offering an ITEA.

Related Articles
  Your Consulting Firm May Be the Very Last Job on Your Resume
  How To Start Your Own Consulting Business
  Cut Costs and Add Value to Your Marketing at the Same Time
  Too much work - is it ever a bad thing?
  SEO Consultancy Services - SEO Consultant to Dominate Search Engines

Article Tags: absence, awa, awas, circumstances, consultancy company, duress, employment agreements, existence, hr tip, itea, probation period, supermarket business, transitional employment



Related Forum Posts
Thanks Evan - Hi Evan I already backchanneled to say thank you very much for this report. I printed it off and literally went over it with fine tooth comb. One thing I learned from this report was that the keyword meta tag is really only useful for the first few terms but basically ignored after that, UNLESS you list terms that are not specifically mentioned on the page. If you do the latter, you can be penalised. That was the case for me, because I had terms which were alternative words or phrases instead of actually used. As a consequence of this report, and some other material I had been reading, I made changes to my page and all meta tags. My site went from unfindable on Google, to page 2 and 3 respectively for the most competitive phrase in that industry. When I checked yesterday, both listings were on page 2, higher up. I am absolutely rock-solid confident I can get it to upper page 1 and Evan's report has been 100% critical. Thanks again Evan. Best wishes Christine
Licensing and Exclusivity - Is it better to receive a license from a company to provide a product to a certain region before of after your company is established? Ex. XYZ is a small company that manufactures cars and sells them in Europe and I want to get their cars licensed from them and be the sole provider of their flying cars in Asia. So would it be better for me to establish a company first or first get the licensing then build the company after? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Young electrical engineer - I'm 15. I am a Director of B&S Associates, and I also have a 50% stake in the company. It is a Ltd company incorporated in the UK. Underneath the company there are currently a few other businesses. Most are internet-based. I've owned over 10 different businesses so far, but this is my first 'real' company (as in registered and incorporated). Right now doing my exams here in the UK - my last year in compulsory education. I will probably stay on at college and hope to go to university. But I'm a little torn as I want to be able to put all my time in the company - if I do go to uni I am going to have to wait at least 5 more years before I can do that
Google Search - I did a quick Google search to see if there was any information online about the company. All I found were a bunch of posts by you and another person asking about the company. Have you gotten any feedback about this company and their program? Chris
Re: Quick Ways To Utilize SEO Effectively - Hello... I think you have to chose good SEO company which is expert in their work so they can able to do online as well as offline marketing of your product or company and rank your company high in the search engine based upon Keyword...


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Sales Courage and Resilience

Designing Employee-Enhancing Training Programs

Too Many Sales Reps Are Wimps

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.