MODERN AWARDS – 4 yearly review – s.156 Fair Work Act 2009 – Full Bench – Clause 14 of the Black Coal Mining Industry Award 2010 makes provision for severance and retrenchment payments to be made to redundant employees – on 10 April 2015 a Full Bench of the Commission issued a decision [[2015] FWCFB 2192] and determination varying the Award by deleting clause 14.4(c) – as part of the 4-yearly review of awards, the Coal Mining Industry Employer Group subsequently proposed a variation to clause 14 to introduce a cap to the maximum entitlement payable – in conducting a 4-yearly review, the Commission takes into account the historical context applicable to each modern award and previous decisions relevant to any contested issue – severance pay was first introduced by a decision of the Coal Industry Tribunal (CIT) in 1973 – scheme further enhanced by CIT by the addition of the retrenchment pay scale in 1984 – Full Bench satisfied that it remains appropriate for the Award to continue to contain an industry-specific redundancy scheme broadly along the lines of that contained in clause 14 – largely because of the long history of the scheme, and its acceptance by employers and employees in the industry over many years – satisfied that there are certain distinctive features of the black coal mining industry that support the retention of the industry-specific redundancy scheme – given the abolition of the 60 years of age redundancy cap, the current entitlement is not the industry based scheme that previously existed – Full Bench held some amendment to clause 14 necessary – a cap, based on complete years of employment, should be applied to the retrenchment payment of two weeks for each completed year of employment in order to restore the industrial balance in the scheme in a non-discriminatory way – effective cap of 15 completed years of employment (or 30 weeks payment) should be applied to the retrenchment payment – a ‘grandfathering clause’ should be adopted to protect those employees who have already completed more than 15 years of employment – draft revised clause 14 of the Award attached – interested parties invited to file written submissions about the form of the proposed clause within 14 days of decision. Black Coal Mining Industry Award 2010
…
