So you have suffered the pain and nuisance of a work-related injury, and now it looks like you’re also about to lose your job! You may be asking yourself, can my employer really get away with this? A number of recent cases have looked at whether an employee can legally be sacked (or have their hours excessively reduced) for sustaining a work-related injury.
Last year a company was fined AU$8,500 for discriminating against an employee with a visual impairment by excessively reducing his hours after receiving medical safety advice.
In another decision, the Federal Magistrates Court found that employees who take workers’ compensation leave and are absent due to injury are protected from unlawful dismissal under the Workplace Relations Regulations.
Evidently however, not all injured workers are protected. The legislation does not come to your assistance if you have been absent from work for more than three months, unless you are on paid sick leave.
However, employers who follow the employee’s medical restrictions and accommodate the worker’s injury by restricting their duties, will generally not be found to have forced the termination of the employment. In a decision by the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Tribunal, an employer who dismissed an employee who was injured at work and was unable to return to work indefinitely, did not discriminate against the employee on the grounds of his impairment.
Employers should be aware that it is unlawful to dismiss an employee because of a temporary absence from work due to illness or injury within the meaning of the regulations. However, as the cases indicate, it largely depends on the individual circumstances of the case.
