The Fair Work Act approaches its first anniversary
If after reading this news letter you can relate to what you read please feel free to call Doug Taylor or Deane Aitken at Dekro for a no obligation chat.
Dekro has been assisting clients to understand and meet their new legislated requirements and has a good insight into the issues that are confronting businesses, many of which are unknown. We have found many businesses know they have to do something after all we are approaching 12 months since the first aspects were introduced and the new modern awards have been in place for about 5 months
1. You should by now have an understanding of the Award Coverage that applies to your workforce.
When delivering our basic Fair Work Review & Audits we have found Employers who:
- Have employees employed under individual contracts, letters of offer or even verbal employment arrangements, which have no reference to any Award. (85% of the Australian Workforce is now covered by an Award.)
- Have employment contracts that refer to 40 hour working weeks, with no penalty payments applying.
- Have employees under as many as eight different Modern Awards.
- Have hired new staff using out of date contracts and letters.
- Believe that the fact that they pay high hourly rates is enough to remove award coverage.
- Do not know how to formalise individual working arrangements, using ”Individual Flexibility Agreements” IFA’s.
- Could be using “Guaranteed Annual Earnings” Agreements but are not.
2. You should by now be compliant with the Ten (10) National Employment Standards (NES) and have a clear understanding of the implications of these on your work arrangements.
What we have found are employers who:
- Don't have Policies in place to deal with requests for Flexible Working Hours, accruing and taking Annual, Personal, Parental, and Community Service leave.
- Have not provided the Fair Work Information Sheet to new employees.
- Are not aware that there are new requirements regarding Termination and Redundancy pay that apply to all workers..
- Have not addressed the “Maximum Hours of Work” Standard.
3. You should have a understanding of the other General Protections under the Fair Work Act.
What we have found are employers who:
- Do not understand the increased protections against wrongful treatment and discrimination and the wider application of these additional protections
- Do not understand that employees can make General Protection Claims to Fair Work Australia.
- Do not understand that there proper policies, procedures and training systems can provide an adequate defence against claims.
There are many decisions that have been made by Fair Work Australia that have resulted in severe penalties for breaches of the Act.
A recent case resulted in a Company and two of its managers being fined.
The operators of a printing business have been fined a total of $35,000 for sacking two of it’s workers for complaining about being underpaid. Datasend Australia Pty Ltd has been fined $25,000; its director Phillip Gray has been fined $4000 and Production Manager Graham Berry has been fined $6000. The fines are a result of a prosecution by the Fair Work Ombudsman.
As stated above if you would like to discuss where you are at in relation to complying with these new laws please feel free to call Doug Taylor or Deane Aitken at Dekro for a no obligation chat,