Tony Woods
Partner
Telephone: + 61 2 9947 6329
tony_woods@hdy.com.au

Practice Area

• Occupational Health & Safety
• Public Sector
• Workplace Relations and Safety

Tony Woods

Tony heads our Workplace Relations and Safety group and has been practising in employment and industrial relations for over 20 years.

Tony's practice covers all the issues that arise in managing a workplace. Tony focuses on assisting employers to achieve their business strategies with their greatest resource, their people. He assists employers to manage difficult employees, to implement clear and effective remuneration strategies, and to uphold their corporate values through the fair treatment of their employees. Tony also acts for senior executives.

He applies this approach to disputes, negotiating enterprise agreements and awards, drafting employment contracts and policies, dealing with discrimination complaints, managing performance and conduct reviews, terminations and dismissal disputes, as well as managing safety risks and defending occupational health and safety (OH&S) prosecutions.

Tony has been involved in implementing the industrial relations strategy as part of one of Australia's largest de-mergers and successfully managing the extraction of key employees from a competitor by winding through restraint obligations. His recent work also includes creating a compilation of the operative provisions from over 50 awards and enterprise agreements into one enterprise agreement, investigating significant fraud, achieving terminations while neutralising industrial disruption, and successfully conducting some of Australia's major discrimination cases. Tony has been responsible for defending a range of OH&S prosecutions, successfully having proceedings dismissed prior to trial on several occasions as well as overseeing and advising on comprehensive audits of OH&S management.

Tony is listed in PLC Which Lawyer? 2008 as a "Recognised Individual" in the area of Labour and Employee Benefits.

Tony has been a member of the New South Wales Law Society Industrial Law Committee since 1997 and is also a member of the Industrial Relations Society of New South Wales.