VIC Employment Law on Relocation - Redundancy?

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Lyn15

Member
24 January 2016
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My employer has advised that I will have to relocate from our office to the CBD approx. 30kms. I do not want to relocate. I am under an EBA and attached to the EBA is an MOU, which states that in the event of a permanent relocation of employees occurring during the life of this agreement, which it is due to relocating its operations to a location which is more than 15 kilometres from the respective site, undertakes to make a one-off payment of $,500 to relocated employees in lieu of the additional kilometres travel.

Items 1-5 states how the payments would be made.

Item 6. Employees who do not relocate will be eligible to a redundancy payment in accordance with the terms contained in the Agreement.

As per Item 6, I do not wish to relocate. I have advised my employer that I do not wish to relocate and the employer's response was, "unfortunately, we do not believe these positions are redundant."

The MOU that was put in place related to a potential move to Hawthorn which was being considered at the time of the Whittlesea and South Morang consolidation. While Hawthorn itself was considered a reasonable city location, the lack of a direct route meant people would have to travel into the city then out to Hawthorne which was therefore considered unreasonable so redundancy was offered. The intention of the MOU was not to cover moves to the CBD which are allowed under the EBA and we believe the CBD is a suitable alternative location and we’ve confirmed this in due diligence/legal advice when we made the announcement.

If this is the case, why did they not state this in the MOU? It states more than 15Kms. It does not state if they relocate to Hawthorn or excluding the CBD.

Your thoughts on Employment Law would be appreciated.

Thanks
 

Rod

Lawyer
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27 May 2014
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Sounds like you have a reasonable case to make for redundancy but without reading the EBA and the MOU can't really say how strong your claim is. Probably need an employment lawyer.