Australian employees receive a high level of protection from employment laws. These include protection against unlawful, wrongful and unfair dismissal. And, although you might not realise it, these are quite different.

Before you make a dismissal case against a former employer, you need to determine what sort of case you need to make. This can be difficult without legal advice, so we’d recommend speaking with an employment lawyer if you need more information. As well as this, we’ve provided a quick outline of the main types of illegal dismissal, with the aim of giving you a solid knowledge base to start with.

What Is Unfair Dismissal?

To start with, let’s look at unfair dismissal. To keep things simple, unfair dismissal refers to the termination of employment without good reason or in an unfair or harsh manner. This could include:

• Being fired because something unrelated to your job and workplace, including personal issues.
• Being dismissed unexpectedly without being told why.
• Having your employment terminated due to performance or workplace issues that you haven’t been given the chance to fix.

As you can imagine, the scope of unfair dismissals is wide, and each case is therefore treated on an individual basis by the Australian Fair Work Commission.

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