award coverage Archives - MDC Legal

COVID-19 Changes to Modern Awards and strategies to manage workforce terms and conditions

Posted by | Articles, modern award | No Comments

By Samantha Lyon, Senior Associate 

COVID-19 has dramatically impacted the way we live and work. Businesses all around Australia and the world are having to adapt quickly to remote and flexible working arrangements. In addition to managing the complexities that come with these matters, employers will need to keep abreast of and comply with statutory obligations that are being introduced by authorities and are changing daily.

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Overtime and Reasonable Additional Hours

Changes to modern award annualised salary clauses

Posted by | Articles, employment contracts, modern award, modern awards, polices and procedures | No Comments

By Mark Cox, Director and Renae Harg, Senior Associate 

New annualised salary clauses for a number of modern awards come into effect as of 1 March 2020. The annualised salary clauses increase the obligations on employers in relation to modern award annualised salaries, including notifications to employees, increased record keeping obligations and reconciliation of the amounts paid.

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Keeping it casual: Casual employee entitled to annual leave

Posted by | complaince, Contracts, contractual entitlements, HR Advice & Support, leave entitlements, modern award | No Comments

By Renae Harg, Senior Associate and Lauren Wright, Lawyer 

WorkPac Pty Ltd v Skene [2018] FCAFC 131

The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia has rejected WorkPac’s argument that the “industrial meaning” of the term “casual employee” has been incorporated into the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (the Act) for the purpose of the National Employment Standards (NES).

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Are you being underpaid? Are you underpaying your staff?

Posted by | Articles, complaince, Contracts, contractual entitlements, HR Advice & Support, modern award | No Comments

By Nikita Barsby, Special Counsel and Lauren Wright, Lawyer

The Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) recently conducted an audit of businesses throughout the eastern states of Australia which found that 72% of the businesses had breached workplace laws.[1] The audit resulted in the recovery of $471,904 for 616 workers across the 234 businesses audited. The most common breach was an underpayment of hourly rates, followed by non-existent or inadequate employment records.

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What’s in a name: The effect of a position title on Modern Award coverage

Posted by | Articles, complaince, Contracts, HR Advice & Support, modern award, Terminations, Unfair Dismissals & Adverse Action, Training & Compliance | No Comments

By Mark Cox, Director and Ruth Collins, Lawyer 

It is a common misconception amongst employers that a senior position title and high income can exclude an employee from being covered by a modern award. Not so. Instead, employers must look to the principle purpose of the position the employee was performing to assess whether it is covered by the classifications of roles covered by the award.

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