The Federal Government has passed amendments to the Fair Work Act that apply transfer of business rules to protect the entitlements of state public sector employees in Queensland, NSW, South Australia and Tasmania through Parliament.

 

Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Bill shorten, said the Fair Work Amendment (Transfer of Business) Bill 2012 will protect conditions and entitlements of former public sector employees where their jobs are lost in a transfer of business, such as outsourcing or asset sale.

 

“These changes enable certain public sector employees who lose their job to retain the benefit of existing terms and conditions of employment and to have their hard-earned entitlements protected where a transfer of business occurs from a state public sector employer to an employer in the Fair Work system,” Mr Shorten said.

 

The Bill further strengthens and extends the benefits of the existing transfer of business provisions under the Fair Work Act 2009, which previously only applied when both old and new employers were covered by the Fair Work system.

 

“The 632,000 employees working in the Commonwealth, Victorian, Northern Territory and ACT public sectors already have the benefit of the transfer of business protections in the Fair Work Act.  The Australian Government is determined to ensure that the over 1 million public sector employees in those other states generally receive similar protection when they transition into the national workplace relations system,” Mr Shorten said.