Minimum Rates of Pay

Following on from our article about minimum rates of pay from last month’s Tips and Trips, please note that the Fair Work Commission has announced a 2.5% increase to the national minimum wage.  If your employees are covered by a registered agreement you should check to see if this applies.  For anyone not covered by an award or an agreement, the new national minimum wage will be $772.60 per week or $20.33 per hour.

This will also apply to all award wages, with the award increase happening in three different stages:

·         Most awards will increase from the first full pay period on or after 01 July 2021.

·         The increase for the Retail Award will apply from the first full pay period on or after 1 September 2021.

·         The other 21 awards will increase from the first full pay period on or after 01 November 2021.

We would also like to remind you of the importance of paying your employees correctly as the determination of underpayments by the Fair Work Ombudsman can result in high penalties for businesses.

Recently, a restaurant in the inner Melbourne suburb of South Yarra was found to have underpaid 40 employees, a number who were on working visas, a total of $53,850 between December 2017 and June 2018. The underpayments were due to noncompliance with the Restaurant Industry Award 2010 which included:

-       Payment of a flat low hourly rate instead of minimum rates of pay under the Award

-       Non-payment of casual loading, overtime and penalty rates for casual employees

-       Not providing adequate meal breaks

Further to this, the restaurant failed to keep the necessary time records and also failed to do any reconciliations for full-time annualised salary employees.

For the underpayments, the Fair Work Commission imposed a penalty on the business to the tune of $170,100 and the company’s sole director was also penalised $34,020 – a large amount for a small/medium business.

As the underpayments of young and migrant staff have been a recurring issue within the restaurant industry, The Fair Work Ombudsman and the Department of Home Affairs set up the ‘Assurance Protocol’ which will afford visa holders the right to ask for help without the fear of their visa being cancelled if they feel they are being exploited in the workplace.

For further information please log onto the Fair Work site or contact our People Risk Solutions team on 1300 208 828 or advice@abphillips.com.au