If your business sells or leases business equipment, and you also install, maintain, or service that equipment, and you employ people to do this work, you’re likely covered by the Business Equipment Award [MA000021].

From 24 April 2025, the pay guide update changed a few allowances that were previously paid hourly to weekly. Additionally, from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2025, minimum award wages increased by 3.5%. 

In this guide, we explain who the Award covers, how to classify roles, and the key pay and conditions employers need to apply.

The Business Equipment Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers 

The Business Equipment Award 2020 [MA000021] sets minimum pay and conditions for many businesses that sell or lease business equipment and provide related installation or servicing.

To stay compliant, managers must consider:

• Coverage fit: Confirm the role is not better covered by the Professional Employees Award (e.g., where the employee is doing professional IT duties that fit that Award’s classifications).
• Employee type: Full-time, part-time, and casual employees can end up on different rates. For casuals, the Award sets loading rates that change depending on the day and time worked.
• Classification: Match the job to the right stream and level, not the job title. The Award uses Technical (Technical employee Levels 1–2 and Technician Levels 3–6), Clerical and Administration (Levels 1–5), and Commercial Travellers (sales roles).
• Hours and timing: Check ordinary hours and when extra payments apply, including overtime once work goes outside or beyond ordinary hours.

One easy-to-miss quirk:

For day workers, Saturday, Sunday, and outside-spread payments are set as hourly allowances, while public holidays are paid as a percentage rate.

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

Award Basics

The Business Equipment Award 2020 sets the minimum pay and conditions for many workplaces mainly involved in the sale or lease of business equipment and related services, including installation, servicing, and maintenance. It commonly covers roles such as technicians and technical services employees, clerical and administrative staff, and commercial traveller sales roles.

The Award specifies key pay rules, including minimum hourly and weekly rates, as well as extra payments, such as weekend and public holiday rates, overtime rates, allowances, breaks, and ordinary hours arrangements.

The Award works alongside the National Employment Standards (NES), which set the minimum legal entitlements for most employees, including core leave and public holiday rules. The Award then adds industry-specific minimum pay rates and extra conditions on top of the NES.

Who’s covered under the Business Equipment Award?

You’re generally covered by the Award if you operate in the business equipment industry, meaning the sale or lease of business equipment and any related installation or servicing.

Businesses covered

Employers involved in the sale or lease and related installation or servicing of business equipment, such as: 

• Data processing equipment and computers
• Accounting and adding machines (such as calculators)
• Fax machines, photocopiers, and cash registers
• Related equipment (such as keyboards, display screens, printers, routers, and multifunction devices)

Employees covered

Common examples include:

• Technical employees and technicians
• Clerical and administrative employees
• Salespersons
• IT apprentices and trainees working in the business equipment industry

It can also apply to labour-hire employees when they’re placed in a business-equipment workplace.

Who isn’t covered under the Business Equipment Award?

The Award doesn’t cover:

• Managerial employees
• Employees in formal training or schooling
• Employees of electrical contractors
• Employees of business equipment manufacturers
• Retail employees

If this Award doesn’t fit, Fair Work suggests checking one of these awards:

• Retail Award
• Professional Employees Award
• Manufacturing Award

Coverage self-check: Does the Business Equipment Award apply?

To see if the Award applies to your business and employees, check the following statements:

• I operate a business in the business equipment industry, meaning the sale or lease of business equipment, along with any related installation or servicing.
• Business equipment includes computers, data processing equipment, photocopiers, and related equipment such as keyboards, display screens, and multifunction devices.
• The employee’s day-to-day duties match a classification in this Award, such as a technical employee or technician, clerical or administrative employee, or salesperson.
• The employee isn’t mainly employed in a managerial position.
• The employee’s primary work isn’t covered elsewhere (e.g., retail work covered under the Retail Award).
• There’s no enterprise agreement or other enterprise instrument covering the employee (if there is, it usually sets pay and conditions, subject to the usual rules).

If most of these apply, the employee is likely covered by the Business Equipment Award 2020.

If coverage isn’t clear, check the Award wording and run the role through Fair Work’s Award Finder.

Determining Business Equipment Award [MA000021] Requirements

Under the Business Equipment Award, employees are grouped in 2 ways:

• Employment type (full-time, part-time, or casual). This affects arrangements such as ordinary hours and minimum engagement, especially for casuals.
• Classification (the role’s day-to-day duties, plus the skill, training, and responsibility involved).

Employment types

The Award uses 3 main employment types: full-time, part-time, and casual.

Full-time

A full-time employee works an average of 38 ordinary hours per week.

For day workers, ordinary hours are a maximum of 8 hours per day, worked between 6.30 am and 6.30 pm, Monday to Friday (unless an agreement changes the spread or includes weekend ordinary hours). By agreement, ordinary hours can be up to 12 hours per day, excluding meal breaks.

Full-timers are regular employees and receive the usual permanent entitlements, like paid annual leave.

Part-time

A part-time employee works a regular schedule of fewer than 38 ordinary hours per week. They’re paid the minimum hourly rate for each ordinary hour worked.

They usually get the same core conditions as full-time employees, but key entitlements are calculated based on the hours they work. (You’ll see this referred to as pro rata.) 

Casual

Casual employees are paid an hourly rate plus a 25% casual loading for each ordinary hour worked.

Each time a casual is required to attend work, the minimum engagement is 2 continuous hours.

Classifications, streams, and levels

The Award uses 3 classification streams: 

• Technical (Technical employee Levels 1–2, Technician Levels 3–6) 
• Clerical and Administration (Levels 1–5) 
• Commercial Travellers (Trainee Salesperson, Salesperson Levels 1–3)

Levels group employees by the complexity of their work and the skills, training, and responsibilities needed by the role, which determine the employee’s minimum pay.

Let’s look at the Technical Services stream as an example.

Technical Services stream

The Technical Services stream groups levels by: 

• Technical employee (Levels 1–2). Usually does more hands-on routine work like assembly and basic handling tasks. 
• Technician (Levels 3–6). Usually does higher-level service work, such as diagnosing faults and repairing equipment.

Here, we highlight Levels 1–4 to show the difference between a Technical employee and a Technician.

If your employees better fit the streams below, the Award sets out separate level definitions for each one.

• Clerical and Administration stream (Levels 1–5): Office support and admin work, from basic supervised tasks through to higher-level coordination and complex office responsibilities (e.g., admin assistant, receptionist, customer service support, accounts admin, and office coordinator).
• Commercial Travellers stream (Salesperson Levels 1–3): Sales roles where the employee sells or solicits orders for business equipment and related operating supplies, and has been assigned a sales quota after training (e.g., field sales representative, business equipment salesperson, and account manager for business equipment).

You can find full details in Schedule A of the Award.

Business Equipment Award Pay Rates and Entitlements Overview

Under the Business Equipment Award, pay rates and entitlements set the minimum standards for what covered employees must be paid and the key conditions they receive, including ordinary hours, overtime, penalty rates, allowances, and leave.

Note: The Award can switch off some Award rules (such as ordinary hours, meal breaks, overtime, and some shiftwork provisions) for streams where salary thresholds apply. Refer to this section for those provisions.

Minimum base rates

Using our Technical Services stream, Levels 1–4 examples, let’s see what the Business Equipment Award minimum pay rates for full-time and part-time adult employees look like:

Here’s how the 2025 minimum pay rates work in practice for a Technical employee, Level 1:

• If they work full-time, you’d pay at least the minimum weekly rate of $948.
• If they work part-time, you’d pay the minimum hourly rate of $24.95. So, 20 hours per week would be $499 per week (20 × $24.95).
• If they’re casual, you’d pay the same base hourly rate plus 25% casual loading. 25% of $24.95 is $6.24, so the casual rate is $31.19 per hour ($24.95 + $6.24). Over 20 hours, that is $623.80 (20 × $31.19).

For the full list of pay rates, check the Business Equipment Award Pay Guide.

Penalty rates

Penalty rates are higher rates paid when employees work at certain times, like weekends, public holidays, or outside the usual spread of ordinary hours. They’re paid on top of the minimum base rate.

Note: There’s also a minimum of 4 hours’ pay at the public holiday rate if the employee is available to work 4 hours. For day workers, Saturday, Sunday, and outside the spread are set as hourly allowances, not a percentage penalty rate.

Now, let’s see how the rates work in practice using a Level 3 Technician on $26.69 per ordinary hour.

• If they work ordinary hours on Saturday as a day worker, the Award pays a Saturday allowance of $16.65 per hour, so the total is $43.34 per hour ($26.69 + $16.65).
• If they work on a public holiday, the rate is 250%, which is $66.73 per hour ($26.69 × 2.5). 
• For casuals, the hourly rate already includes the 25% casual loading, so start with the casual base rate first and don’t add the loading again on top of penalties.
  • For example, a Level 3 Technician casual rate is $33.36 per hour. If they work ordinary hours on Saturday as a day worker, adding the $16.65 per hour Saturday allowance gives $50.01 per hour ($33.36 + $16.65).

For shiftwork penalty rates, it’s worth checking the Award.

Overtime rules and rates

Overtime is extra work that exceeds an employee’s ordinary hours (beyond their scheduled finish) or is performed on a day off.

Under this Award, overtime is based on the number of overtime hours worked, plus whether it’s worked on a day off, with a special rule for Sunday (when it’s a day off). 

Note: Ordinary Sunday hours get the Sunday (penalty) allowance, while Sunday overtime hours get overtime rates. 

If an employee is required to work overtime on a Saturday or Sunday, they must be paid for at least 4 hours at the overtime rate. The exception is where the overtime is worked immediately before or after ordinary hours, in which case they’re paid for the actual time worked at the overtime rate.

To see how overtime rates work, here’s an example using a Level 3 Technician, with a minimum base rate of $26.69 per hour.

If they’re full-time or part-time and work 2 hours of overtime after their ordinary hours on a weekday, those hours are paid at 150% because they fall within the first 3 overtime hours. That makes the overtime rate $40.04 per hour ($26.69 × 1.5), so for 2 hours you’d pay $80.08 (2 × $40.04).

Casuals can also get overtime, but it’s applied at a rate that already includes the 25% casual loading (so don’t add the loading again on top). For the first 3 overtime hours, a casual Level 3 Technician is paid 187.5%, which is $50.04 per hour ($26.69 × 1.875). 

For the full overtime rules (including time off instead of overtime pay and the minimum rest break between shifts after overtime), refer to the Award.

Breaks

Breaks are set rest times during a shift, so employees can stop work and recover. 

For the full meal break rules and exceptions, it’s best to check the Award.

Allowances

Allowances are extra amounts paid on top of base rates when certain duties, working conditions, or work-related expenses apply.

Under this Award, the Technical and Clerical streams include both wage-related allowances and expense-related allowances. The Commercial Travellers stream uses only expense-related allowances.

Here are a few examples of both types for the Technical and Clerical streams.

Wage-related allowances

Note: Under this award, the leading hand is considered an all-purpose allowance. This means the allowance is treated as part of the employee’s pay, so it’s included when working out overtime, penalty payments, and leave pay.

Expense-related allowances

For full details and for allowances that apply to the Commercial Travellers stream, refer to the Award.

Leave entitlements

Most leave comes from the NES, which applies even if an award covers the employee. The Business Equipment Award adds a few extra rules about annual leave.

Annual leave

• Who gets annual leave: Full-time employees get 4 weeks of paid annual leave each year. Part-time employees get it pro rata, and casuals don’t get paid annual leave (they’re paid a casual loading instead).
• Annual leave loading: When a day worker takes annual leave, they’re paid for the ordinary hours they would’ve worked, plus a 17.5% leave loading.
• Annual leave in advance: Annual leave can be taken before it accrues if there’s a written agreement, and the employer must keep a copy as a record. 
• Cashing out annual leave: This option can only happen through a separate written agreement each time. The employee must keep at least 4 weeks of accrued leave, and the maximum that can be cashed out in any 12 months is 2 weeks.
• Country employees: If an employee is required to stay away from their usual home more than 2 nights per week (Monday to Sunday) for each week of the working year, they get an extra 7 continuous days’ leave on top of their annual leave.
• Excessive leave accruals: The Award includes extra rules for managing large leave balances. Annual leave is generally treated as excessive if it’s more than 8 weeks (or more than 10 weeks for shiftworkers).

For full details, including shiftworker annual leave rules, shutdown directions, and rules about untaken annual leave on termination, refer to the Award.

Other NES leave

Employees covered by this Award also receive NES leave, including personal, carer’s, compassionate, parental, community service, and family and domestic violence leave.

How To Determine Business Equipment Award Coverage

A quick coverage check helps confirm the Award is the right fit and that pay and conditions are set up correctly.

Business Equipment Award [MA000021]: A practical, real-world example 

To see the rules in action, here’s a simple scenario in a business equipment service and installation workplace.

A 30-year-old full-time Technician Level 4 employee:

• Works in field service, support, and installation.
• Is rostered on Saturday, 9.00 am to 5.00 pm (8 hours), then stays back 2 extra hours (to 7.00 pm).

How the Award applies:

• Classification and base rate: Technician Level 4 minimum base rate is $28.12 per hour.
• Saturday ordinary hours: For day workers, ordinary hours on Saturday are paid using a $16.65 per hour Saturday allowance (not a percentage).
• Overtime: The extra 2 hours after the rostered finish are overtime paid at 150% (first 3 hours). Because it’s worked right after ordinary hours, it’s paid for the actual time worked, not a 4-hour minimum. 
• Meal allowance: A meal allowance of $18.36 can apply when the employee qualifies for the overtime rest break rule (a paid 20-minute break at the start of overtime when 2 or more hours are worked), unless a meal is provided or they can reasonably go home for a meal.

Pay summary:

Common scenarios and compliance tips

Use these key checks for scenarios you might face:

1. Business hires a “technician” who mostly does basic assembly and packing

Key checks:

• Business Equipment Award coverage is likely if the work is in business equipment sales or lease and related servicing or installation.
• Classify based on what the employee actually does day-to-day, not the job title, and match it to the Technical stream level descriptions.
• Pay the right base rate once the correct level is set, and review if duties increase over time.

2. Day worker is rostered outside the spread and on weekends

Key checks:

• For day workers, working outside the spread or on Saturday or Sunday is paid using hourly allowances, not percentage penalty rates.
• Public holidays are paid at a percentage rate and may require a minimum of 4 hours’ pay if the employee is available to work 4 hours.
• Check whether any extra time becomes overtime and apply the overtime rates if ordinary hours are exceeded.

3. Employee works past the meal break point, or weekend overtime is needed

Key checks:

• Meal breaks are usually required after 5 hours, with limited flexibility by agreement, and extra pay can apply if the employee is directed to work past the break point.
• Overtime is based mainly on the number of overtime hours worked, with extra rules for work on a day off and minimum payments for Saturday or Sunday, unless it attaches to ordinary hours.
• If an employee is entitled to the overtime rest break rule, a meal allowance may apply unless a meal is provided or they can reasonably go home for a meal.

Common employer mistakes to avoid

Here are a few common slip-ups to watch for under the Award:

• Placing someone at the wrong level (relying on job titles rather than matching real duties, skills, and responsibilities to the right stream and level).
• Missing casual conditions (using the wrong casual rate for the time worked, or overlooking the casual minimum engagement).
• Not checking when hours turn into overtime (extra time becomes overtime once work goes beyond ordinary hours).
• Forgetting extra payments (not paying or clearly listing allowances like leading hand, first aid, or the overtime meal allowance when the conditions are met).

Glossary

Accrued leave

When an employee has built up leave over time and can take it later (e.g., annual leave).

All-purpose allowance

“All-purpose” refers to how the allowance is applied, not what it’s paid for. It’s treated as part of an employee’s ordinary rate of pay and is added to the base rate to calculate overtime, penalty rates, and leave.

Day worker

An employee who works ordinary day hours (not shiftwork) under the Award’s rules. For example, a technician rostered Monday to Friday, 9.00 am to 5.00 pm with no night shifts.

Loading

An extra percentage paid on top of the minimum rate (e.g., 25% casual loading instead of paid leave).

Minimum engagement

The minimum amount of time an employee must be paid for each shift, even if they work less than that (e.g., if the minimum engagement is 2 hours and someone works 1 hour, they’re still paid for 2 hours).

Ordinary hours

The standard hours an employee is rostered to work at their minimum/base rate (before overtime applies).

Pro-rata

A proportional amount based on hours worked (e.g., part-time leave and pay are calculated based on the hours worked).

Salary threshold

A set yearly pay amount that, if met, can switch off some Award rules (such as ordinary hours, meal breaks, overtime, and some shiftwork provisions). For example, a Technical stream employee paid $76,795 or more.

Resources and Links

For official details and templates, see:

• Business Equipment Award 2020 [MA000021]: Full Award text. 
• Fair Work Information Statement (FWIS): Summary of key workplace rights and employer obligations under the NES. 
• Fair Work Record-Keeping Guidance: What to keep for pay records and payslips, plus templates. 
• Annual Leave Cash-Out Agreement: Template for recording an agreement to cash out annual leave. 
• Annual Leave In Advance Agreement: Template for agreeing to annual leave in advance.

FAQs

Disclaimer

The information provided here is a summary only and does not constitute legal advice. While we have made every effort to ensure the information provided is up to date and reliable, we cannot guarantee its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your specific situation. Laws change frequently, and outcomes may vary depending on your business circumstances. We recommend consulting a qualified employment lawyer before making decisions related to workforce management. Please note that we cannot be held liable for any actions taken or not taken based on the information presented on this website.

The post Business Equipment Award: Pay Rates, Classifications, and Obligations appeared first on Connecteam.

If your business has employees who do commercial travelling, advertising sales, or merchandising work, whether on the road or in locations outside your office, or you’re a labour hire business providing employees for any of these roles, then you’ll need to understand and comply with the Commercial Sales Award [MA000083].

From 1 July 2025, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) increased modern award wages by 3.5%. This means employers covered by the Commercial Sales Award 2020 should review classifications, allowances, and penalty rates to ensure their employees get the right pay and entitlements.

In this guide, we explain who’s covered by the Commercial Sales Award, how to classify employees under the Award, and how pay, leave, and penalty rules apply.

Commercial Sales Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers

Pressed for time? Check out this section for the essentials:

The Commercial Sales Award [MA000083] sets minimum employment standards and pay rates for commercial travellers, merchandisers, and advertising sales representatives. 

To stay compliant, managers must consider:

• Award coverage: Whether the employee is covered by the Commercial Sales Award as opposed to, say, the Clerks—Private Sector Award [insert link], depending on the employee’s actual duties.
• Employee type: Whether the employee works on a full-time, part-time, or casual basis. 
• Employee classification: Under the Award, employees are classified into 3 groups: commercial travellers/advertising sales representatives, merchandisers, or probationary travellers (employed for under 3 months).
• Hours and timing of work: Whether the employee works on holidays or weekends vs. standard workdays, or does overtime.

Watch out for these compliance trip-ups:

• Labelling employees as “sales managers” or “account managers” when they actually spend substantial time in the field rather than in the office, yet are treated as office-based and therefore excluded from the Award.
• Paying annual leave for commission-based employees using standard leave loading instead of the Award’s commission-specific calculation rules, and using flat salaries without clear set-off clauses or regular better off overall testing (BOOT).

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

Award Basics

The Commercial Sales Award is a modern national workplace award. It’s made by the FWC under the Commonwealth Fair Work Act 2009, which is one of Australia’s most important employment laws.

The Award sets out the minimum employment conditions for employees working as commercial travellers, merchandisers, and advertising sales representatives in Australia. It specifies pay rates, penalty and overtime rates, and leave entitlements.

Employees covered by the Award receive minimum employment conditions under the National Employment Standards (NES) as well as the Award. The NES provides 11 basic entitlements, such as maximum weekly hours, annual leave, and other leave entitlements.

Who’s covered under the Commercial Sales Award?

The Commercial Sales Award covers businesses whose employees work as:

• Commercial travellers
• Advertising sales representatives
• Merchandisers
• Probationary travellers (commercial travellers or advertising sales representatives with under 3 months’ experience in the role)

The Award also covers labour-hire businesses that hire out employees for commercial-travelling, advertising sales, or merchandising.

Who isn’t covered under the Commercial Sales Award?

This Award doesn’t apply to commercial travellers, merchandisers, or advertising sales representatives if their employer is covered by another modern award that specifically classifies those roles. 

This includes: 

• Clerks—Private Sector Award [insert link]
• Contact Call Centres Award [insert link]
• Graphic Arts, Printing and Publishing Award [insert link]

The Commercial Sales Award also doesn’t apply to:

• Employees excluded from Award coverage by the Fair Work Act 2009.
• Employees covered by a modern enterprise award or instrument, or a state reference public sector modern award or transitional award.

Coverage self-check: Does the Commercial Sales Award apply?

To see if the Commercial Sales Award fits your situation, check these statements:

• I operate a business (e.g., a media or publishing group, a food and beverage company, or an event, exhibition, and sponsorship business) and employ staff to work in commercial travelling, advertising sales, and merchandising roles.
• The employee works away from, or is substantially away from, the office as a commercial traveller, advertising sales representative, or merchandiser.
• The employee isn’t a managerial employee genuinely covered by a higher-level classification under another modern award.
• The employee isn’t covered by a more specific award that applies to their primary duties (e.g., the Clerks—Private Sector Award).
• The employee isn’t covered by an enterprise agreement (EA). If they are, the EA generally sets pay and conditions, subject to the BOOT and interaction with the underlying award.

If these statements apply, the employee is likely covered by the Commercial Sales Award.

Determining Commercial Sales Award [MA000083] Requirements

Rules on pay, hours, breaks, overtime, and other employee entitlements vary depending on the employment type and the Award’s classifications.

Employment types

There are 3 categories the Award groups employees into: full-time, part-time, and casual.

Full-time employees

Full-time employees are expected to work an average of 38 ordinary hours per week, up to a maximum of 152 hours over a 28-day period. These hours can be worked on any day during the week, but mustn’t exceed 10 hours on any day.

Part-time employees

Part-time employees have reasonably predictable hours and work less than 38 hours per week. They get the same entitlements as full-time employees, but on a pro rata basis. Under the Award, they must also be engaged for at least 3 consecutive hours per shift.

Casual employees

Casual employees work on an intermittent or irregular basis. They’re entitled to a higher hourly rate than full-time or part-time employees, which includes a 25% casual loading as compensation for not receiving certain entitlements available to permanent employees.

On each occasion they work, they must be employed and paid for at least 2 hours. 

Commercial Sales Award classifications

The Award groups employees in the commercial sales industry into 3 classifications:

• Probationary Travellers
• Merchandisers
• Commercial Travellers/Advertising Sales Representatives

These groups are defined as follows:

Commercial Sales Award Pay Rates and Entitlements Overview 

The Commercial Sales Award sets minimum pay rates, penalty and overtime rates, and rules for breaks, allowances, and employee entitlements. Let’s look at each one.

Minimum base rates

For adult commercial sales employees, minimum rates are determined by the Award’s classifications.

For junior rates and rules for trainees or employees receiving a supported wage, refer to the Award.

Penalty rates

Penalty rates are payable to full-time, part-time, and casual employees when they work particular times or days.

Overtime rules and rates

Overtime is paid when employees work outside their ordinary hours. 

The following overtime rates are payable under the Award:

Breaks

There are no explicit break specifications under the Award; employees are simply entitled to regular breaks of reasonable duration for normal meals on each work day.

Allowances

The Award covers expense-related allowances only. These are reimbursements for particular work-related costs. There are no wage-related allowances to contend with.

Some examples of expense-related allowances contained in the Award are as follows:

For details on other allowances, such as vehicle modification, phone, and accommodation, check the Award.

Leave entitlements

Most leave comes from the NES and applies regardless of the award an employee is covered by. The Commercial Sales Award then adds more rules, particularly about annual leave.

Annual leave

Here are the fundamentals you should know about annual leave under the Award:

• Full-time and part-time employees accrue 4 weeks of paid annual leave per year (pro rata for part-time employees). However, casual employees don’t accrue annual leave.
• Annual leave is paid at a 17.5% leave loading for employees who don’t receive commission. Those who receive commission get the higher of 17.5% leave loading or the average of their commission payments over the previous 12 months. 
• Employers can reasonably direct employees to take annual leave (e.g., during shutdowns), provided this complies with the NES.
• Employees can take leave as it accrues, but taking leave in advance, splitting leave, or cashing out up to 2 weeks of leave per year requires approval and minimum balances to be maintained.

Other NES leave

Other types of leave covered by both the NES and the Award include:

• Personal/carer’s leave
• Compassionate leave
• Parental leave and related entitlements
• Community service leave
• Family and domestic violence leave

How To Determine Commercial Sales Award Coverage

To avoid underpaying staff and having to hand out back pay later on, you need to check your employees are covered by the Award. Let’s work through a Commercial Sales Award example.

Commercial Sales Award [MA000083]: A practical, real-world example 

Emma is a 27-year-old full-time commercial traveller employed by a food manufacturing business who:

• Has worked as a commercial traveller for 6 months, using her own car for work.
• Usually works an average of 7.6 hours per day from Monday to Thursday, taking approximately 24 minutes for an unpaid lunch break each day.
• Works extended hours on Fridays, from 7:30 am to 6:00 pm for a total of 10 hours, plus a 30-minute unpaid meal break.
• Works mostly away from her employer’s place of business, spending minimal time in the office.
• Sells or takes orders, promotes products for sale, and negotiates shelf placement, as well as setting up display units and gondola ends at customers’ premises.
• Is paid a base hourly rate plus commission on any sales.

How the Award applies:

• Coverage: Emma is covered under the Commercial Sales Award because she’s engaged as a commercial traveller and her primary duties involve selling, taking orders, and promoting products for sale away from her employer’s place of business.
• Classification and base rate: Emma’s duties and 6 months’ experience as a commercial traveller align with a Commercial Traveller classification under the Award, with a minimum rate of $1,071.90 per week or $28.21 per hour.       
• Allowances: As Emma uses her own car for work, she’s entitled to a vehicle allowance of $0.98 per kilometre travelled. For example, if she travelled 650 kilometres during a particular week for work, she’d be entitled to a payment of $637 for that week. 
• Overtime: Emma is entitled to 10 hours of overtime every 28 days based on the 2.5 extra hours of work she does every Friday. This is 150% of $28.21 per hour for 10 hours, totalling $423.15 per 28-day period (4 working weeks).
• Breaks: Under the Award, Emma is entitled to regular breaks of reasonable duration for normal meals on each work day, so her daily 24-minute lunch break qualifies.

Common scenarios and compliance tips

Apply these key checks to similar situations you may come across:

1. A beverage company hires an “account manager” who works mostly on the road, visiting bottle shops and hospitality venues, taking orders, negotiating pricing, and maintaining client relationships

Key checks:

• Confirm whether the employee is working away from or substantially away from the employer’s place of business, which points towards coverage under the Commercial Sales Award.
• Look past the employee’s job title of “account manager” and assess whether their primary duties align with those of a commercial traveller (selling goods for resale or use in production).
• Ensure any salary or commission arrangement for the employee properly offsets minimum rates, overtime, and leave entitlements, with regular BOOT checks.

2. A media company employs advertising sales staff selling advertising space and event sponsorships, with some days spent visiting clients and other days spent in the office preparing proposals and managing accounts

Key checks:

• Confirm the employee primarily works away from their employer’s place of business, and not merely occasionally out of the office.
• Assess whether the employee’s role is better covered by the Commercial Sales Award or another Award (e.g., the Clerks—Private Sector Award), based on where they do most of their work and the tasks they perform.
• Apply the Award’s provisions on minimum payment rates, ensuring the employee wouldn’t be disadvantaged in weeks with low commission (if applicable).
• Ensure annual leave is paid in accordance with the Award’s special rules for commission-based employees, rather than assuming standard leave loading applies.
• Monitor hours worked outside ordinary hours for potential overtime, particularly during campaign launches or events.

3. A food supplier engages merchandisers to visit supermarkets and convenience stores to set up displays, replenish stock, rotate products, and reorder goods, doing some minor sales as well

Key checks:

• Confirm that the employee’s primary duties fit the merchandiser definition under the Award (i.e., promotion, re-ordering, and display work away from the employer’s place of business).
• Ensure employees aren’t incorrectly classified as commercial travellers rather than merchandisers if selling is only a minor part of their work.
• Check compliance with Award provisions on travel time, vehicle use, and expense reimbursement, where applicable.
• If paying a flat rate, confirm that it validly offsets Award entitlements and remains compliant as Award rates increase.

Common employer mistakes to avoid

To ensure compliance and fair practice, avoid these common errors:

• Assuming coverage of employees under the Commercial Sales Award by focusing on their job titles, such as “sales manager” or “account manager,” rather than whether they’re predominantly field-based as opposed to office-based.
• Treating employees as managers (i.e., Award-free) based on their seniority or autonomy, even though they lack genuine managerial authority.
• Miscalculating annual leave and other entitlements for commission-based employees, with employers incorrectly applying standard leave loading instead of the Award’s commission-specific rules.
• Assuming “above-award” salaries absorb all Award entitlements without clear contractual set-off clauses or regular BOOT checks, resulting in cumulative underpayments over time.

Glossary

Above-award salary

A salary paid above the minimum rate set by the Award, intended to compensate for one or more Award entitlements, such as overtime, penalty rates, or allowances.

BOOT (better off overall test)

A legal test used by the Fair Work Commission to ensure employees are better off under an enterprise agreement than they would be under the relevant modern award.

Casual employees

An employee engaged with no firm advance commitment to ongoing work, who works irregular hours and is paid a casual loading instead of receiving paid leave and certain other entitlements.

Ordinary hours

An employee’s standard working hours before overtime or penalty rates apply. Under the Commercial Sales Award, this averages 38 hours per week for full-time employees.

Resources and Links

• Commercial Sales Award [MA000083]: A Fair Work Ombudsman document summarising who is and isn’t covered under the Australian Commercial Sales Award.
• Commercial Sales Award 2020: The full Fair Work Ombudsman document detailing all pay rates, conditions, and classifications under the Commercial Sales Award.
• Commercial Sales Award 2010: The original Commercial Sales Award 2010 from the Fair Work Commission.
• Downloadable Pay Guide: Downloadable Commercial Sales Award pay guide from the Fair Work Ombudsman.

FAQs

The Commercial Sales Award 2020 is a modern Australian workplace award that sets out the minimum conditions for employees working as commercial travellers, advertising sales representatives, or merchandisers. It includes details on pay rates, working hours, leave entitlements, and more.

The Commercial Sales Award covers employees who are commercial travellers, advertising sales representatives, and merchandisers, as well as their employers. It also covers labour hire businesses and the employees they hire out for these roles.

The Commercial Sales Award doesn’t apply where another modern award specifically covers the employee’s role, or where the employee is excluded from award coverage under the Fair Work Act 2009. It also doesn’t apply to employees (or employers) covered by an enterprise award or agreement, or by a state reference public sector modern or transitional award.

Disclaimer

The information provided here is a summary only and does not constitute legal advice. While we have made every effort to ensure the information provided is up to date and reliable, we cannot guarantee its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your specific situation. Laws change frequently, and outcomes may vary depending on your business circumstances. We recommend consulting a qualified employment lawyer before making decisions related to workforce management. Please note that we cannot be held liable for any actions taken or not taken based on the information presented on this website.

The post Commercial Sales Award: Pay Rates, Classifications, and Obligations appeared first on Connecteam.

If your business provides architectural services and employs architecture students, graduates of architecture, or registered architects, you’ll need to understand and comply with the Architects Award 2020 [MA000079].

From 1 July 2025, the Fair Work Commission increased modern award minimum wages by 3.5%. That annual wage review affects minimum hourly rates under the Architects Award and flows through to overtime calculations and other rate-based entitlements.

Award coverage in architecture depends on the work an employee actually performs, not their job title. Some roles in an architecture practice, such as administrative staff or draughtspersons, may be covered by different awards. Misclassifying employees, assuming a flat salary absorbs overtime, or overlooking annual leave loading can quickly lead to underpayment.

In this guide, we explain who the Architects Award covers, how to classify employees correctly, and what pay, overtime, allowance, and leave rules apply.

The Architects Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers

Here’s what employers need to know about the Architects Award in Australia:

• The Architects Award, officially called the Architects Award 2020 [MA000079] and informally the Fair Work Architects Award, is a set of regulations that establishes employment standards in the architecture industry in Australia.
• To make sure your business is compliant, check:
  • Award coverage: Which employees are covered by the Architects Award. For instance, employers might assume that it covers draughtspersons, but those individuals would actually be covered by the Manufacturing Award.
  • Employee type: The different rates for different types of employees, such as full-time, part-time, and casual.
  • Employee classification: The category that determines pay rates and ranges from Level 1 (entry-level) to Level 2(b) (Registered Architects).
  • Hours and timing of work: How to correctly compensate for ordinary and non-ordinary hours of work, including overtime and public holidays.
• The Architects Award doesn’t cover academic or training staff, even if they’re engaged in architectural work.
• The biggest hurdle is often assessing coverage. You might imagine a designer to be covered, for example, but unless they’re also a registered architect, they will likely be covered by another award. 

Award Basics

The Architects Award covers most employees in the architecture industry. That means general coverage for entry-level graduates and high-level Registered Architects alike.

The Award provides a detailed breakdown of the minimum employment conditions and pay rates for every employee covered by the Award. This includes minimum hourly pay rates, break rules, overtime penalties, allowances, and more.

Who is covered under the Architects Award?

The Architects Award 2020 covers three main employee types (although this list isn’t comprehensive):

• Architecture students:
  • Architecture student interns
  • Student architectural assistants
  • CAD/BIM student assistants
• Architecture graduates:
  • Graduate architects
  • Architectural graduates
  • Junior architectural designers
• Registered Architects:
  • Architects
  • Senior architects
  • Project architects

Who isn’t covered under the Architects Award?

Just because someone is conducting work for an architecture company doesn’t automatically cover them under the Architects Award. Some specific workers are excluded, although they’ll still be covered by a different award.

While this list isn’t comprehensive, the following aren’t covered by the Architects Award:

• Academic staff (at the university or college level)
• Designers
• Non-architectural employees
• Draughtspersons

Coverage self-check: Does the Architects Award apply?

Here’s a handy checklist that should help you easily determine whether or not an employee is covered by the Architects Award. Consider whether:

1. You operate a business that provides architectural or related professional design services. For example, an architectural practice, multidisciplinary design firm, or consultancy offering architectural design, documentation, or project delivery services.
2. The employee directly performs architectural work or supports architectural services. That could cover documentation, modelling, BIM, project coordination, technical support, research, or architectural administration.
3. The employee falls into one of the following groups: an architecture student (undertaking work experience or part-time work), an architecture graduate (who’s completed an accredited architectural qualification but isn’t yet registered), or a Registered Architect.
4. The employee’s role is architectural in nature (and not, say, primarily engineering or surveying).
5. The employee isn’t covered by a more specific Modern Award. Sometimes there’s a “better fit” for an employee, like the Engineering Award or Clerks Award, for example.
6. The employee isn’t genuinely a senior executive or high-level manager. These employees are often outside of Award coverage.
7. There is no enterprise agreement covering the employee. An enterprise agreement is an agreement made between a business and its employees on minimum conditions and rates. If there’s one in place, it replaces the Modern Award.

If the answer is yes to all of these, the Architects Award likely applies.

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

There are no proposed changes taking place in 2026. However, the Fair Work Commission reviews wages every year, so look out for pay rate changes coming on 1 July 2026.

Determining Architects Award [MA000079] Requirements

The important thing for employers to remember is that Architects Award coverage isn’t determined by job title. Instead, it depends on actual duties (as well as employment type). This makes the Award more complex. But it also makes it fairer: employees get paid based on their level of skill and responsibility rather than titles.

The Architects Award separates employees into various categories. Firstly, by employee type, which determines the hours they typically work. Then, into “classifications,” which are more detailed descriptions of employee responsibilities.

Let’s take a look:

Employment types

The Architects Award covers three main employment types:

• Full-time employees: Those who work on a full-time contract of 38 hours per week or more.
• Part-time employees: Employees who work less than 38 hours per week. Note that part-time employees are entitled to the same conditions and minimum pay rates as full-time employees. However, they’re on a pro-rata basis, which means that although they have the same per-hour rates, they will probably make less overall.
• Casual employees: Workers who work irregular hours only when needed, with no guarantee of ongoing work. Casual employees get a specific hourly rate based on their experience level plus a 25% loading rate. This loading rate makes up for a lack of leave entitlements.

Classifications and levels

Someone’s employment type—whether they work as a full-time, part-time, or casual employee—doesn’t cover their level of skill and responsibility. So, the Award further separates employees into “classifications” which outline specific roles in ascending “levels” that more accurately explain what each employee actually does.

For the Architects Award, those levels are:

Note that each of these levels is also separated into further classifications (for example, Level 1 1st pay point, or Level 1 2nd pay point) when it comes to Architects Award rates. But we’ll cover those distinctions when we discuss minimum rates in the next section.

Architects Award Pay Rates and Entitlements

The following sections will break down the current pay rates and entitlements for employees covered by the Architects Award in Australia. We’ll cover minimum wages, penalty rates (including overtime rules and rates), break regulations, allowances, and leave entitlements.

Minimum base rates

The above Architects Award rates apply to Graduate and Registered Architects only. Architecture students under the age of 21 have these minimum rates:

Overtime rules and rates

Fortunately, overtime rules are relatively simple in the Architects Award compared to other Modern Awards. Employers and employees both benefit from a very straightforward set of rules:

Here, “overtime” refers to any hours worked outside of ordinary rostered hours.

However, there are a few important specifications to note:

1. Employers and employees can make alternative overtime arrangements at their own discretion. However, these arrangements must fulfil overtime payment obligations. They cannot be unfair to the employee. They must also be recorded in writing and documented.
2. Casual employees don’t receive their standard 25% loading payment during overtime work, but they do get the 150% overtime rate.

Breaks and allowances

There is no rule or clause regarding breaks in the Architects Award. In the absence of any such clause in the Architects Award, employers should still follow the general National Employment Standards (NES) guidelines:

• Under the NES, employers must provide unpaid meal breaks and paid rest breaks when they are a term of an employee’s contract (including an enterprise agreement or award). If the award doesn’t include breaks, they may still be set by a piece of legislation, a contract, or another agreement.
• This means there’s no award-mandated unpaid meal break after a certain number of hours unless it’s written into the contract or enterprise agreement. A relevant state award or other award could also apply.

Let’s turn to allowances. Allowances are extra payments made to employees for expenses. The Fair Work Architects Award specifically outlines several such allowances employers must give:

Leave entitlements

Leave is governed by the National Employment Standards (NES). It’s largely the same across all Modern Awards. All employees are entitled to the same leave coverage. Here’s a general overview:

This gives an overview but doesn’t outline all the specific leave provisions unique to the Architects Award. For example, the Architects Award also outlines special leave provisions for students and graduates for specific study-related events.

How to Determine Architects Award Coverage

Sifting through the Architects Award and finding out exactly what an individual employee is entitled to can seem like a complex task. But it doesn’t have to be difficult. You can speed things up by following a simple process.

Check out our detailed, practical example below.

Architects Award [MA000079]: A Practical, Real-World Example

A Sydney-based architecture company is hiring Ben. Ben is a graduate architect who will be working full-time.

Firstly, let’s confirm Ben’s classification:

1. He has completed an accredited architecture degree.
2. He has less than 12 months’ experience.
3. He works under supervision.

We should classify Ben as a Graduate of Architecture at Level 1—Entry. We now know that his minimum hourly rate for ordinary hours will be $32.84 and his minimum weekly pay will be $1247.90.

Let’s say Ben works 41 hours in one week. His ordinary hours only cover 38 of those hours, so he worked 3 overtime hours:

• Overtime rate: Overtime multiplier of 1.5 x $32.80 = $49.20
• Total overtime pay: 3 hours x $49.20 = $147.60

Common Scenarios and Compliance Tips

Even once you’ve determined an employee’s classification and minimum rate, there are still many smaller hurdles to face along the way. The Architects Award pay guide should explain everything you need to know.

However, to help make things easier, we’ve compiled some common scenarios architecture employers might face, complete with tips:

Key checks:

• Confirm the employee is correctly classified under the Graduate of Architecture levels. Base this on experience and responsibilities, not job title.
• Ensure the salary covers minimum award pay for 38 ordinary hours plus any overtime worked.
• Check whether the salary also compensates for 17.5% annual leave loading.

Key checks:

• Confirm the employee is genuinely casual (irregular work, no firm advance commitment).
• Pay 25% casual loading for ordinary hours only.
• Track hours diligently: casuals still accrue overtime.
• Make sure casuals are offered casual conversion in line with the NES.

Key checks:

• Determine whether the employee qualifies as a student or graduate.
• Apply paid exam or study leave where required (see section 13.6 of the Award). Don’t forget that this is specific to the Architects Award and won’t be found in the NES guidelines.
• Distinguish this leave from annual leave or personal leave in payroll systems.
• Request reasonable notice and evidence for the time off.

Key checks:

• Identify when hours exceed 38 per week and trigger overtime.
• Check whether any time off instead of overtime (TOIL) arrangement is in writing.
• Make sure overtime isn’t being “absorbed” into salary without clear contractual terms.
• Monitor fatigue and possible violation of Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws, especially where the Award is silent on breaks.

Common Employer Mistakes to Avoid

Some employers find it difficult to stay compliant with the Architects Award—not just because it’s a detailed document, but also because it changes frequently. Employers can sometimes miss small (but often significant) updates.

To make the process a little easier, we’ve created a simple, no-fuss list of common Architects Award employer mistakes, plus how to avoid them:

• Misclassifying employees: Perhaps the most common error in all Awards, many employers mistakenly classify employees by title (for example, “graduate” or “senior architect”). Always remember that classifications are based on experience and actual duties. Go through Schedule A – Classification Definitions in the Architects Award 2020 [MA000079] and carefully select the right level.
• Assuming a flat salary “covers everything”: Salaries don’t automatically cover extra entitlements like overtime penalties and allowances, so flat annual salaries are rarely sufficient. Regularly perform better off overall (BOOT-style) checks and record overtime diligently to avoid this mistake.
• Getting casual overtime wrong: Many employers forget that casual workers are also entitled to 150% overtime penalties—although they don’t receive the 25% loading rate they do in ordinary hours.
• Forgetting annual leave loading: Some employers mistakenly pay annual leave at the employee’s base rate only. Remember that the Architects Award requires 17.5% annual leave loading as well as NES annual leave pay when leave is taken.
• Failing to review arrangements: Award coverage isn’t “set and forget.” Various aspects can change: the Award itself, employee classifications, you name it. It’s your responsibility as the employer to regularly review classifications as employees progress to make sure you’re compensating them fairly in line with the Award.

Glossary

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the terms you’ll find in the Architects Award 2020.

Ordinary hours

Non-overtime hours worked that are in line with an employee’s contract or arrangement. For example, 38 hours per week for full-time employees, or up to 38 hours per week for part-time employees.

Leave loading

An extra payment employers must give employees while they’re on leave.

Enterprise agreement

An agreement made between a business and its employees that outlines agreed-upon minimum standards and rates. An enterprise agreement often supersedes any Modern Awards.

Better off overall test (BOOT)

A process businesses use to test whether employees would be better off (make more money) overall under either an enterprise agreement or the Modern Award.

Pro-rata

This means ‘in proportion’ and usually applies to part-time employees. It means they make the same per-hour as a full-time equivalent, but less overall. If the full-time employee works 38 hours a week and receives $80,000, for example, a part-time pro-rata employee working 19 hours a week would make $40,000 (exactly half).

Resources and Links

This Architects Award pay guide gives a general overview of the Architects Award in Australia. However, employers should also take the time to read through detailed resources such as:

• Architects Award [MA000079]: The Fair Work Ombudsman’s overview of who the Architects Award does and doesn’t cover.
• Architects Award 2020: The official, current, and full text of the Architects Award, containing all rates and entitlements.
• Downloadable Pay Guide: A downloadable Architects Award pay guide (PDF) from the Fair Work Commission.
• Architects Award variation (AM2023/15): The Fair Work Commission’s latest updates to the Architects Award.

FAQs

Looking for something specific? Try our FAQs. These should help answer common questions about the Architects Award 2020.

What is the Architects Award?

The Architects Award is a document that outlines minimum pay rates and other employee entitlements, like break rules and allowances, for employees in the architecture industry in Australia. The most recent version is the Architects Award 2020 [MA000079].

How much do architects get paid in Australia?

Pay varies a lot for architects in Australia. Minimum hourly rates of architects range from $32.84 (entry-level) to $40.32 (experienced Registered Architects). However, these are minimums. Pay can exceed this with special arrangements.

Who regulates the Architects Award in Australia?

The Fair Work Commission creates and regulates the Architects Award in Australia. The Fair Work Ombudsman is a similar (but independent) government organisation that’s responsible for educating and promoting the Fair Work Commission’s regulations.

Does the Architects Award cover architecture students?

Yes. Provided the student is working as an employee (whether part-time or full-time) in an architecture company in Australia, and their work is covered by the Award, students are covered.

The post Architects Award: Pay Rates, Classifications, and Obligations appeared first on Connecteam.

If your business mainly involves manufacturing, processing, packing, or producing food, beverages, or tobacco products, then you’ll need to understand and comply with the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award 2020 [MA000073].

Food and grocery manufacturing alone employs almost 300,000 Australians—and that’s not counting the 23,000 who work in beverage and tobacco manufacturing. All in all, over a quarter of a million Australians rely on the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award for workplace entitlements.

However, for many employers, the big problem with the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award is coverage: Which workers are covered by the Award and which are covered by other similar Awards? It’s down to employers to find out.

That’s why we’re coming to you with a detailed and updated Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award guide. We’ll review everything you need to know about coverage, current minimum rates, overtime penalties, allowances, and leave—and we’ll even include some top compliance tips, too.

The Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers

The Fair Work Commission’s Modern Awards are complex documents. They outline workers’ rights and entitlements for specific industries in Australia—so if you’re an employer in the food, beverage, or tobacco industry, here’s a quick summary:

• The Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award [MA000073] provides industry-specific employee entitlements for employees in those industries. They exist alongside National Employment Standards (NES), which are more general.
• It covers a broad set of critical considerations, including:
  • Award coverage: Who exactly the Award applies to. Employers might assume an administrator working in, say, their food industry company is covered. They’re not—they would likely be covered by the Clerks Award [MA000002].
  • Employee type: The different types of workers covered by the Award. This includes full-time, part-time, and casual employees, as well as apprentices.
  • Employee classification: The different “pay levels” that reflect individual employees’ experience and responsibilities. These range from Level 1 to Level 6.
  • Hours and timing of work: The difference in pay between “ordinary hours” and non-ordinary hours (like overtime), wherein pay is usually more.
• Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award coverage is generally narrower than many employers assume. It mainly covers production, processing, packing, and manufacturing roles, and not other roles related to the food, beverage, and tobacco industries.
• For business owners and managers, the hard part is usually classifying employees at the right level. Always remember: classification and pay are based on duties performed, not job titles.

Award Basics

The clue to the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award [MA000073] is in the name: it covers employees in the manufacturing of these products—not all employees who work in these industries.

Within the document, you’ll find a range of information on various employee entitlements (all of which we’ll cover below). 

The Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award works alongside the National Employment Standards (NES). These provide workers rights for all employees in Australia, including things like leave entitlements. The Modern Awards don’t replace these rights. Instead, they add to them.

Who is covered under the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award?

Since it focuses on manufacturing, the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award is narrower than most people think.

However, it still provides workplace entitlements for a huge number of employees. Some of those covered include:

• Production workers
• Food processors
• Bottled water producers
• Qualified tradespersons

Essentially, it covers those involved in the “preparing, cooking, baking, blending, brewing, fermenting, preserving, filleting, gutting, freezing, refrigerating, decorating, washing, grading, processing, distilling, manufacturing and milling of food, beverage, and tobacco products.” 

The full coverage list can be found on the Fair Work Ombudsman website.

Who isn’t covered under the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award?

The Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award only covers employees who are involved in manufacturing. So, that excludes:

• Admin workers
• Retail bakery workers
• Mechanics
• Salespersons

The types of employees listed above are covered under different Modern Awards. That might be the Clerks Award [MA000002] for administrators, for example, or the Retail Award [MA000004] for retail bakery workers.

You can find more detailed breakdowns on the Fair Work Ombudsman website.

Coverage self-check: Does the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award apply?

Here’s a quick way to assess whether or not an employee will be covered by the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award. Ask yourself these questions:

• Does your business involve manufacturing, processing, blending, brewing, distilling, fermenting, bottling, canning, packaging, or otherwise producing food, beverages (including wine, beer, or spirits), or tobacco products?
• Does the employee work directly within the manufacturing or processing of your goods? Is the employee’s work hands-on and operational rather than office-based?
• Is the employee specifically excluded from the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award [MA000073] coverage list?
• Is the employee managerial or professional and therefore award-free?
• Is there an enterprise agreement (EA) covering the employee? (If there is, the EA generally applies, subject to the BOOT and award interaction).

If you answered yes, yes, no, no, no, then the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award likely applies. If you didn’t, you should use the Award Finder from the Fair Work Ombudsman to find the correct award for the employee. 

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

The Award saw some updates during 2025, such as a minimum rate increase and allowance updates in July. So far, there are no confirmed major updates set for 2026. However, the normal annual wage review will take place in June 2026, and any likely wage increases will become effective from 1 July.

Determining Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award [MA000073] Requirements

Almost all of the 122 Modern Awards in Australia follow a similar structure: they establish coverage and then go on to separate employees into employee types (such as full-time or casual) and classifications (which are called ‘levels’).

This process helps narrow down individual employees so employers can pay them accurately. The Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award is a comprehensive document, but classification is easy when you know the relevant background information.

This should help you understand the structure of the award:

Employment types

The Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award outlines four main employee types who are covered. They are:

• Full-time employees: Those who work at least 38 ordinary hours a week. Any employee not specifically contracted as a part-time or casual employee is automatically considered full-time.
• Part-time employees: Those who work less than 38 ordinary hours a week but who have regular shift patterns. They get the same entitlements as full-time employees, only on a pro-rata basis (which means they make the same per-hour but less overall because they work fewer hours).
• Casual employees: Those with no guarantee of ongoing work; they’re usually employed “as and when needed.” Casual employees get a minimum hourly rate plus 25% casual loading, which is an extra payment to compensate for lack of leave entitlements.
• Apprentices: Apprentices are covered by the Award the same way that part- and full-time employees are.

Classifications and levels

Every employee, regardless of employment type, is categorised into a specific level. This level reflects the worker’s level of experience as well as their actual duties and responsibilities. This was established as a fairer way to establish minimum rates rather than simply using job titles.

In the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award 2020, classifications are as follows:

This list isn’t comprehensive. For the sake of brevity, we’ve summarised the descriptions of each level. You can read through the full list on the official Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award document; just head to “Schedule B – Classification Structure and Definitions.”

Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award Pay Rates and Entitlements

In this section, we’re going to break down the current employee entitlements in the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award 2020. This info is updated for 2026. We’ll cover minimum hourly base rates, overtime penalties, break rules, allowances, and leave entitlements for all six Award levels.

Minimum base rates

Here are the current minimum hourly rates of pay for each Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award employee:

For junior employees who aren’t apprentices:

For apprentices, minimum rates depend on the apprentice stage:

Overtime rules and rates

Overtime is defined as any hours worked outside of ordinary hours, which are hours agreed upon in one’s contract. For full-time employees, for example, that would be any hours worked beyond 38 hours a week.

You’ll notice this table is split into “continuous shiftworkers” and “non-continuous shiftworkers”:

• Continuous shiftworkers: These are employees who work in rotating 24/7 shifts.
• Non-continuous shiftworkers: These are employees who work regular Monday-Friday daywork shifts with weekends off.

Here are the current overtime rates:

There are many overtime rules that dictate when and how you can give overtime. For example:

• Overtime workers get a 20-minute rest break every 4 hours.
• Saturday, Sunday, and public holiday overtime workers must get paid their full hourly rate for their first rest break.

Head over to Part 5 – Overtime and Shiftwork Rates on the official Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award 2020 for more examples.

Breaks and allowances

Break rules are relatively straightforward in this Award. The main one is:

• All employees are entitled to a meal break after 5 hours of work.

However, if workers have to work though meal breaks, they’re entitled to:

• 150% of hourly rate until break.
• 200% of hourly rate until break during ordinary hours on Saturday or Sunday.

Various employees are also entitled to certain allowances. These are extra payments for expenses and particularly difficult circumstances. They include: 

Read more about allowances under the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award in section 20 of the Award.

Leave entitlements

Leave isn’t actually governed by the specific award but by the National Employment Standards (NES). This means leave rules are more or less the same for all workers:

How to Determine the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award Coverage

Busy manufacturing managers need a quick way to place employees in the right classification. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be a slog—with this method, you can easily determine how much every employee should be paid.

Let’s explore a real-world example to see how it’s done.

Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award [MA000073]: A Practical, Real-World Example

A regional beverage manufacturer making non-alcoholic drinks employs 27-year-old Sophie as a full-time Production Operator.

Sophie:

1. Works on the bottling line operating machinery and performing quality checks.
2. Has some decision-making competency.
3. Doesn’t supervise others.
4. Holds an Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) Certificate 1 in Food Processing.

Sophie is therefore a full-time Level 3 employee. Her minimum rate for ordinary hours is $25.85. She’s a continuous shiftworker, so her ordinary overtime rate is 200%.

Common Scenarios and Compliance Tips

Here are some common hurdles that crop up when applying the Tobacco, Food, and Beverage Award. Find out how to avoid them—and the hefty penalties that come with non-compliance.

1. Winery labels a worker who still performs hands-on production work a “Cellar Supervisor”

Key checks:

• Check whether the role is genuinely supervisory or mainly production-based; classify by actual duties, not job title.
• Check whether they supervise others on a regular and ongoing basis—if so, the leading hand allowance may apply.
• Apply higher-duties pay for any periods in which they supervise others beyond their normal duties.
• Make sure weekend and overtime penalties are applied.

2. Food manufacturer employs office staff on the same payroll as factory workers

Key checks:

• Don’t assume one award applies across the whole business.
• Confirm award coverage separately for each role. Production workers are covered by the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award, but admin staff are covered by the Clerks–Private Sector Award.
• Apply correct minimum rates, classifications, and hours rules per award and level.

3. Employee works weekdays but occasionally helps out on Saturdays

Key checks:

• Don’t treat Saturday work as “ordinary hours” by default.
• Check if overtime is triggered by the day of the week worked, not just hours worked.
• Apply Saturday penalty rates, even if total weekly hours are under 38 hours.
• Make sure any time-off-in-lieu arrangements comply with the Award.
• Keep accurate time records for occasional weekend work.

Common Employer Mistakes to Avoid

Watch out for these mistakes when fulfilling your employer obligations, each of which can slow down your operations and even result in fines:

• Assuming the award covers everyone in your business: Your employees may be in the food, beverage, or tobacco manufacturing industry, but that doesn’t automatically mean they’re covered by the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award. Admin and sales staff, for instance, aren’t covered. Use the Award Finder to accurately classify each individual employee.
• Misclassifying employees: Even when employees are covered by the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award, it’s easy to classify them into the wrong level. To avoid underpayment claims, make sure you carefully review each worker’s actual duties and classify accordingly.
• Getting shift penalties wrong: Many employers mistakenly treat afternoon and night shifts the same as daywork. This leads to incorrect overtime penalties. Remember that shift rules are highly specific in this award!
• Assuming overtime only applies after 38 hours: While overtime penalties do apply for work carried out over contracted hours, they also apply on other occasions, like Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays, too.
• Missing allowances: The Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Award has a great many allowances—things like cold storage, freezer work, and special clothing are extremely common. Take the time to map roles to their respective allowance triggers in advance so you always know how much to pay.

Glossary

Here are some Modern Award-specific terms you may not be familiar with:

Ordinary hours

These are hours worked per each contract. For instance, full-time employees work 38 hours per week and part-time workers work fewer than 38 hours per week.

Better off overall test (BOOT)

A test employers use to determine which agreement would pay the employee more overall: the modern award or an enterprise agreement.

Enterprise agreement

This is when a business and its employees agree upon their own minimum rates and entitlements outside of the modern award. Its terms override the terms of the award. 

Entitlements

The minimum pay rates, break lengths, expense allowances, and other conditions an employer must provide their employees by law.

Time-off-in-lieu (TOIL)

Also known as ‘time off instead of instead of overtime’ (TOIL), this is where an employee and their employer agree the employee can take time off instead of being paid overtime pay.

Resources and Links

You might find these official resources useful for further reading into the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award 2020:

• Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award 2020: The official Fair Work Ombudsman Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award in full.
• Food and Beverage Manufacturing Award [MA000073]: A brief summary of who is and isn’t covered by this Modern Award from the Fair Work Ombudsman.
• Downloadable FBT Award Pay Guide: A downloadable PDF summary of the current minimum pay rates from the Fair Work Commission.

FAQs

Find out more about the Tobacco, Food, and Beverage Award through these frequently asked questions:

What is the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award in Australia?

The Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award is a document created by the Fair Work Commission. It outlines the employee entitlements that apply to specific types of workers in those industries. This can include minimum hourly rates and overtime penalties, for example. 

What is the Manufacturing Award?

The Manufacturing Award is one of the 122 Modern Awards in Australia. It defines minimum workplace conditions and employee entitlements for workers in various manufacturing roles.

It’s not the same as the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award, which only covers employees directly involved in manufacturing of specific food, beverage, and tobacco products. The Manufacturing Award is a broader document that applies to many miscellaneous manufacturing employees.

What is the minimum rate for food and beverage workers in Australia?

For food and beverage manufacturers, which refers to workers involved in production, minimum hourly rates range from $24.28 to $29.00, depending on your experience. Rates are different for office-based staff and salespersons, however, as their work falls under a different Award.

The post Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Manufacturing Award: Pay Rates, Classifications, and Obligations appeared first on Connecteam.

If your business wholly or mostly involves manufacturing or processing fresh meat, or selling fresh meat or meat products as part of a standalone retail butcher shop, then you’ll need to understand and comply with the Meat Industry Award 2020 [MA000059].

From 14 October 2025, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) made changes to the Meat Industry Award 2020, including clearer classification definitions and quicker progression from Meat Industry Level 1. And, from 1 July 2025, the FWC increased modern award wages in Australia by 3.5%.

In this guide, we explain who the Meat Industry Award covers, how to classify employees under the Award, and what pay, leave, and penalty rules apply, so you can avoid underpayment or other Fair Work issues.

Meat Industry Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers 

Pressed for time? This section covers the essentials:

• The Meat Industry Award [MA000059] sets minimum employment standards and pay rates for employees in the meat industry, which means those working in meat processing, meat manufacturing, and meat retail establishments. 
• To stay compliant, managers must consider:
  • Award coverage: Whether the employee is covered by the Meat Industry Award as opposed to, say, the Food and Beverage Manufacturing Award or the Retail Industry Award.
  • Employee type: Whether the employee works full-time, part-time, or casual hours, or is a daily hire employee (including part-time daily hire) in a meat processing establishment. 
  • Employee classification: These range from Level 1 (entry-level meat industry employees) to Level 8 (general butchers in charge of meat retail establishments).
  • Hours and timing of work: Whether the employee works on weekends vs. standard workdays, or works overtime.
• Watch out for the following: 
  • From 14 October 2025, entry-level employees no longer need to remain at Level 1 for 3 months; progression to higher pay levels now depends on demonstrating competence or being certified by the employer.
  • Be sure to correctly calculate and pay overtime and penalty rates for hours worked outside ordinary hours, particularly in retail butcher shops, abattoirs, and meat processing facilities that operate extended or non-standard hours.

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

Award Basics

Also known as the Meat Award, the Meat Industry Award is a modern national workplace award in Australia. It’s made by the FWC under the Commonwealth Fair Work Act 2009, one of the country’s major employment laws.

The Award sets out the minimum employment conditions for employers and employees in the meat industry in Australia, including pay rates, working hours, and leave entitlements. It’s designed to ensure employees in the meat industry receive fair treatment and correct entitlements under Fair Work rules.

Employees covered by the Award receive minimum employment conditions under both the National Employment Standards (NES) and the Award. The NES provides 11 basic entitlements, including annual leave and notice periods.

Who’s covered under the Meat Industry Award?

The Meat Industry Award covers most businesses involved in:

• Manufacturing fresh meat.
• Processing fresh meat.
• Selling fresh meat or meat products as part of a standalone retail butcher shop.
• Handling or processing any meat by-products, including skin, hides, and rendering. 
• Distributing, transporting, and storing meat.

Employees covered by the Meat Industry Award include:

• Butchers (including apprentices), meat shop staff, and retail assistants working in butcher shops or meat processing businesses.
• Workers who prepare or process meat, such as boners, slicers, saw operators, packers, and other meat processing workers.
• Abattoir and meat handling workers, including skin classers, trimmers, and people working in cold storage or meat distribution.
• Workers who make smallgoods like sausages, ham, bacon, and similar products.
• Factory workers and machine operators involved in producing processed meat.

Who isn’t covered under the Meat Industry Award?

The Meat Industry Award doesn’t apply to:

• Manufacturing, slaughtering, processing, or selling poultry, game, or game birds (such as chicken retail stores).
• Distributing, transporting, and storing meat when not part of manufacturing, processing, or selling it.
• Meat inspectors.
• Employees focused on machine maintenance tasks.

The Meat Industry Award also doesn’t apply to employers and employees when they’re covered by other awards, such as:

• Retail Industry Award
• Food, Beverage and Tobacco Manufacturing Award
• Manufacturing and Associated Industries and Occupations Award
• Nurses Award

Coverage self-check: Does the Meat Industry Award apply?

Consider whether the following statements apply to your business and the role you’re checking:

• I operate a meat industry business (e.g., an abattoir, meat processing plant, boning room, or retail butchery business) and employ staff to work in meat production, handling, or sales.
• The employee performs meat production tasks, including slaughtering, dressing, boning, trimming, slicing, packing, making smallgoods, and handling or loading meat products.
• The employee isn’t covered by a more specific award (e.g., the Food, Beverage and Tobacco Manufacturing Award or Retail Industry Award).
• The employee isn’t a managerial or professional employee genuinely covered by a different higher-level classification under another modern award.
• There’s no enterprise agreement (EA) covering the employee. If there is, the EA generally sets pay and conditions, subject to the FWC’s Better Off Overall Test (BOOT) and interaction with the underlying award.

If these statements apply, the employee is likely covered by the Meat Industry Award.

Determining Meat Industry Award [MA000059] Requirements

The Meat Industry Award rules on pay, hours, breaks, overtime, and other employee entitlements vary, depending on employment type and classification.

Employment types

The Award groups employees into 4 categories:

• Full-time
• Part-time
• Casual
• Daily hire, including part-time daily hire (applicable only to meat processing establishments like abattoirs)

Full-time employees

Under the Award, full-time employees (including full-time shiftworkers) are either employed to work:

• 38 ordinary hours per week 
• An average of 38 ordinary hours per week over 4 weeks (152 hours in a 28-day period) 

In either case, any hours they work beyond these ordinary hours will attract overtime rates.

Part-time employees

Part-time employees have reasonably predictable hours, work less than the average of 38 ordinary hours per week, and receive the same entitlements as full-time employees, but on a pro rata basis. Under the Award, this also includes part-time shiftworkers.

Casual employees

Casual employees work irregular hours and are paid a higher hourly rate. This includes a 25% casual loading, which makes up for not receiving some entitlements that permanent staff get.

Casual employees must be paid for a minimum of 4 hours for each shift they work, and if working more than 38 hours in a week, those extra hours are paid at overtime rates.

Under the Award, casual shiftworkers are treated as casual employees.

Daily hire employees

Daily-hire employees are engaged on a day-to-day basis rather than through a weekly or ongoing arrangement. They’re commonly used in meat processing work, where workforce numbers vary with daily throughput. 

Daily-hire employees can be:

• Full-time daily hires: No fewer than 7.6 hours per day.
• Part-time daily hires: No fewer than 4 hours per day.

Also, daily hires are paid: 

• An extra 20% of the minimum weekly rate.
• An additional 10% on top of the daily rate.

In addition, daily-hire employees have shorter notice requirements for termination, typically one full working day.

Meat Industry Award classifications

Employees in the meat industry are classified into Levels 1–8 based on the stream they fit into (meat processing, meat manufacturing, or meat retail), their skills, qualifications, experience, and the tasks they may perform.

As an example, Levels 1–3 are set out as follows:

For details on Meat Industry Levels 4–8, refer to the Award.

From 14 October 2025, employees no longer need to stay at Level 1 for a minimum of 3 months. They can now move either to Level 2 or (if employed in the meat processing stream) directly to Level 3 once: 

• They demonstrate they can do productive work without help or training.
• Their employer certifies that they have higher-level skills. 

However, a 6-month limit for staying at Level 1 is still in place under the Award. 

Meat Industry Award Pay Guide and Entitlements Overview 

The Meat Industry Award sets minimum pay rates and is reviewed annually by the FWC. As of 1 July 2025, pay rates rose by 3.5%. Let’s look at the minimum base rates, penalty rates, and overtime rates, as well as some of the other entitlements in this Award.

Minimum base rates

Let’s look at the minimum base rates for Meat Industry Levels 1–3:

For Levels 4–8 and for details on pay rates for junior employees and apprentices, refer to the Award.

Penalty rates 

Penalty rates are payable to full-time, part-time, and casual employees when they work particular times or days, as follows:

For details on public holiday penalty rates, refer to the NES and the Award.

Overtime rules and rates

Any time employees work outside their ordinary working hours, or during their rostered shiftwork hours (if they’re a shiftworker), is considered overtime, and paid as follows:

• For the first 3 hours: At 150% of the employee’s minimum hourly rate.
• After the first 3 hours: At 200% of the employee’s minimum hourly rate.

In meat processing establishments, any overtime worked on Sundays must be paid at 200% of the employee’s minimum hourly rate. The minimum payment for such overtime is 4 hours.

Breaks

The Meat Industry Award sets out these break types:

Allowances

Under the Award, allowances fall into 2 types: 

• Wage-related allowances (additional pay for certain responsibilities or working conditions).
• Expense-related allowances (reimbursements for particular work-related costs).

For further details of each allowance, check the Award.

Leave entitlements

Most leave comes from the NES, which applies no matter which award an employee is covered by. The Meat Industry Award then adds further rules, particularly regarding annual leave.

Annual leave

Here are the fundamentals you should know about annual leave under the Award:

• Full-time and part-time employees get 4 weeks of paid annual leave each year (part-time on a pro rata basis). Employees who regularly work Sundays and public holidays on a continuous shift roster get 5 weeks.
• Annual leave is paid with a 17.5% leave loading, or the applicable shift allowance if that pays more. If an employee takes just 1 day off, the leave loading can be paid later once they’ve taken at least 5 days of leave in a row, if both sides agree.
• Leave loading doesn’t apply when annual leave is paid out on termination if the payout is for less than 1 year of leave.
• Employers can reasonably require employees to take annual leave (e.g., during a shutdown), provided it complies with the NES.
• Employees can take leave as it builds up. Taking leave in advance, splitting leave, or cashing out up to 2 weeks per year is only allowed by agreement and if minimum leave balances are kept.

Other NES leave

Other types of leave covered by both the NES and the Award include:

• Personal/carer’s leave
• Compassionate leave
• Parental leave and related entitlements
• Community service leave
• Family and domestic violence leave

How To Determine Meat Industry Award Coverage 

It’s important to ensure your employees are actually covered by the Award, as it sets out the minimum pay and conditions you must follow and helps prevent underpaying staff or backpaying later. 

Meat Industry Award [MA000059]: A practical, real-world example

To see how the rules apply in real life, take the following scenario:

Jacob is a 34-year-old full-time abattoir worker who:

• Has worked in the meat industry for 5 years. 
• Works Monday to Friday, rostered from 6:30 am to 2:30 pm, with a 30-minute unpaid meal break on each workday.
• Works an extra 2 hours every Wednesday, finishing at 4:30 pm.
• Moves cattle and sheep quietly and safely up the race to the knocking box and helps position them for stunning.
• Receives, identifies, separates, cleans, and trims offal at the eviscerating table in the abattoir.
• Operates with limited supervision and uses independent judgement in handling livestock safely and processing offal.
• Is appointed by his employer to do first aid duties if needed.

How the Award applies:

• Coverage: Jacob is covered under the Meat Industry Award as an abattoir worker.
• Classification and base rate: Jacob’s duties as an abattoir worker align with Meat Industry Level 3, with a minimum weekly rate of $965.10.
• Ordinary hours: Jacob’s rostered hours of 6:30 am to 2:30 pm from Monday to Friday fall within the Award’s ordinary working hours (between 6:00 am and 8:00 pm on Monday to Friday).
• Penalty rates: Jacob isn’t entitled to any penalty rates, as his usual working hours don’t include Saturday or Sunday.
• Allowances: As Jacob has been appointed to do first aid duties if needed, he’s entitled to a first aid allowance of $3.99 per day. He’s also entitled to a meal allowance of $18.38 every Wednesday when he works 2 hours of overtime.
• Overtime: For the 2 extra hours Jacob works every Wednesday, he’s entitled to 150% of the Meat Industry Level 3 minimum hourly rate for those hours.
• Breaks: Because Jacob works longer than 5 hours per day, he’s entitled to an unpaid meal break of at least 30 minutes each workday.

Common scenarios and compliance tips

Let’s look at some common scenarios and the key checks to perform in each.

1. An abattoir hires a “skilled worker” claiming to be at Meat Industry Level 3, but they’re actually performing mostly basic meat processing duties

Key checks:

• Confirm the worker’s role is actually covered by the Meat Industry Award.
• Test whether the worker’s duties match the claimed level of Meat Industry Level 3 or are really more entry-level (Level 1) in nature.
• Classify the worker at the correct level based on the work they actually perform, not their job title.
• Apply the correct minimum pay rate, allowances (e.g., cold temperature or leading hand allowances), and ordinary hours rules.

2. A retail butcher shop employs a mix of part-time butchers and casual counter assistants

Key checks:

• Confirm each employee’s correct employment type (part-time vs. casual).
• Ensure casual employees receive a 25% casual loading.
• Apply different penalty rates for Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays as required.
• Check the minimum engagement period (4 hours) for casual counter assistants and the agreed part-time hours for part-time butchers.

3. A meat processing facility pays “flat hourly rates” to slaughter-floor and boning room workers to cover everything

Key checks:

• Confirm the workers are properly covered by the Meat Industry Award.
• Ensure the flat rates don’t undercut the Award’s minimum, penalty, or overtime rates.
• Check whether workers are being paid overtime, weekend penalties, or shift penalties (for shiftworkers) when required under the Award.
• Regularly conduct “better off overall” tests against current Award entitlements to check that employees aren’t worse off than the Award’s requirements.

Common employer mistakes to avoid

To ensure compliance and fair practice, avoid these common errors:

• Ignoring the 4-hour minimum engagement period for casuals who work fewer than 4 hours in a daily engagement or shift, and paying them only for the hours worked.
• Not paying applicable allowances, such as leading hand allowances for meat processing or butchery employees who supervise or coordinate others.
• Failing to apply the correct overtime or penalty rates, particularly for retail butcher shops, abattoirs, and meat processing facilities operating extended or non-standard hours.
• Not updating pay structures, “flat rates,” or salary arrangements, and failing to ensure workers remain better off overall when penalties, allowances, or Award rates increase.

Glossary

Afternoon shift 

An afternoon shift under the Award means any shift starting at or after 2:00 pm and ending at or before midnight.

BOOT

The BOOT is the Better Off Overall Test. It’s a legal test used by the FWC to make sure employees covered by a proposed EA in Australia are better off than under the relevant modern award (such as the Meat Industry Award).

Crib time

Crib time is a paid meal break at work. It applies when employees need to remain on site and may be required to return to work during their meal break.

Night shift 

A night shift under the Award means any shift ending after midnight but at or before 9:00 am that same morning.

Resources and Links

• Meat Award [MA000059]: A Fair Work Ombudsman document summarising who is and isn’t covered under the Australian Meat Industry Award.
• Meat Industry Award 2020: The full Fair Work Ombudsman document detailing all pay rates, conditions, and classifications under the Meat Industry Award.
• Meat Industry Award 2010: The original Meat Industry Award from the FWC in 2010, which was updated and renamed as the Meat Industry Award 2020.
• Downloadable Pay Guide: Downloadable Meat Industry Award pay guide from the Fair Work Ombudsman.
• Meat Industry Award Determination: Determination by the Fair Work Commission updating the Meat Industry Award 2010 and renaming it as the Meat Industry Award 2020.
• Fair Work Ombudsman: Pay and Conditions: Find pay guides, calculators, and employer obligations under the Fair Work Act 2009.
• Fair Work Information Statement: Key information every new employee must receive when starting a job.
• Fair Work Pay Calculator: Estimate pay, penalty, and overtime rates.
• Modern Awards Pay Database: Check up-to-date award rates for all classifications.

FAQs

What is the Meat Industry Award?

The Meat Industry Award 2020 is a modern Australian workplace award. It contains rules setting out the minimum employment conditions for employers and their employees in the Australian meat industry, including details on pay rates, working hours, leave entitlements, and other conditions.

Does the meat industry award cover employers and employees?

Yes, the Meat Industry Award covers both employers and employees working in the Australian meat industry, including meat processing, meat manufacturing, and meat retail.

What does the Meat Award cover?

The Meat Award or Meat Industry Award covers employers and employees in businesses such as abattoirs, meat processing plants, boning rooms, smallgoods manufacturing operations, meat wholesalers, and retail butcher shops. The work the Award covers includes slaughtering, processing, preparing, manufacturing, handling, and selling fresh meat and meat products. 

Disclaimer

The information provided here is a summary only and does not constitute legal advice. While we have made every effort to ensure the information provided is up to date and reliable, we cannot guarantee its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your specific situation. Laws change frequently, and outcomes may vary depending on your business circumstances. We recommend consulting a qualified employment lawyer before making decisions related to workforce management. Please note that we cannot be held liable for any actions taken or not taken based on the information presented on this website.

The post Meat Industry Award: Pay Rates & Employee Entitlements appeared first on Connecteam.

If your business collects, handles, transports, recycles, or disposes of waste, or supplies labour to the waste management industry, you’ll need to understand and comply with the Waste Management Award 2020 [MA000043].

From 1 July 2025, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) increased modern award wages in Australia by 3.5%. Under the Waste Management Award, this increase affected both base pay rates and all-purpose allowances, like the industry allowance.

This means employers should carefully review overtime, penalties, and leave loading when calculating an employee’s ordinary rate of pay to avoid underpayment.

In this guide, we explain who the Waste Management Award covers, how to classify employees, and what pay, leave, and penalty rules apply.

The Waste Management Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers

Pressed for time? Get the essentials here:

The Waste Management Award [MA000043] sets minimum employment standards and pay rates for employees in the waste management industry, including those working for businesses that handle waste materials or operate waste management facilities.

To help ensure compliance, managers need to consider:

• Award coverage: Whether the employee is covered by the Waste Management Award and not another modern award that could fit more appropriately, like the Road Transport and Distribution Award.
• Employee type: Whether the employee works full-time, part-time, or casual hours in the waste management industry.
• Employee classification: Under the Waste Management Award, classifications range from Level 1 (depot hand in training) to Level 9 (driver of a double-articulated vehicle).
• Hours and timing of work: Whether the employee works weekends, public holidays, or overtime.

Don’t get stung by the following:

• Overtime triggers. For the Waste Management Award, these include daily hours, weekly hours, minimum breaks between shifts, and continuous work across days.
• Misclassifying drivers and plant operators, confusing day work and shiftwork, and mixing public-sector and private-contractor arrangements.

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

Award Basics

The Waste Management Award, or Waste Award, is a modern national workplace award in Australia. It’s made by the FWC under the Commonwealth Fair Work Act 2009, one of Australia’s most significant employment laws.

The Award outlines the minimum employment conditions for employers and employees in the waste management industry, which include pay rates, working hours, and leave entitlements. It’s intended to ensure employees receive fair treatment and correct entitlements under Fair Work rules.

Employees covered by the Waste Management Award are also entitled to the National Employment Standards (NES). These apply to almost all employees in Australia and provide 11 basic entitlements like annual leave and notice of termination.

Who’s covered under the Waste Award?

The Waste Management Award applies to employers in the waste management industry as well as their employees who fall within the Award’s classifications. For example, those who:

• Collect, handle, recycle, transport, or dispose of any type of waste material.
• Operate transfer stations, treatment plants, yards, or terminals dealing with waste. 
• Operate landfill sites, incinerators, recycling depots, and compost facilities, along with any alternative waste treatment facilities.

Common roles covered by the Award include:

• Labourers or depot employees.
• Attendants at waste management facilities.
• Process workers or operators of incinerators.
• Truck drivers transporting sanitary waste.
• Offsiders, runners, or drivers of vehicles and trucks, such as road sweepers, earthmoving plant equipment, and loading cranes mounted on trucks.

Also covered by the Award are labour-hire businesses hiring out workers to the waste management industry.

Who isn’t covered under the Waste Award?

The Award doesn’t cover:

• Drivers who aren’t working in the waste management industry.
• Employees covered by another modern award.
• Anyone the Fair Work Act 2009 explicitly excludes from Award coverage.

It also doesn’t apply to employees or employers covered by: 

• A modern enterprise award or enterprise instrument.
• A State reference public sector modern award or transitional award. 

Coverage self-check: Does the Waste Award apply?

If you’re unsure whether the Award applies to you or your employees, check these statements:

• I operate a waste management or resource recovery business, or a business that provides waste-related services, with operations including waste collection, recycling, landfill operations, transfer stations, sorting or processing of waste, or related environmental services.
• The employee works in a waste management role, such as:
  • Waste collection (including driving or offsiding).
  • Recycling or sorting.
  • Landfill or waste transfer station operations. 
  • Waste processing.
• The employee’s role falls within the classifications and types of work covered by the Waste Management Award, based on the tasks they perform each workday, not just their job title.
• The employee isn’t a managerial or professional employee who genuinely fits within a different higher-level classification under another modern award.
• The employee isn’t covered by a different modern award that more appropriately matches their primary duties. For example, the Road Transport and Distribution Award is likely to apply to employees whose main role is long-distance general freight driving, even though it may also cover transporting waste materials.
• The employee isn’t covered by a state government award. For example, a waste worker employed directly by a state government might be covered by a state award rather than the Waste Management Award.
• The employee isn’t covered by an enterprise agreement (EA). If they are, the agreement must meet the Fair Work Commission’s Better Off Overall Test (BOOT).

If these statements apply, the employee is likely covered by the Waste Management Award 2020.

Determining Waste Award [MA000043] Requirements

Coverage under the Waste Management Award depends on the type of employment and the employee’s role and classification level.

Employment types

The Award divides employees into 3 types: full-time, part-time, and casual, which includes day workers and shiftworkers.

Full-time employees

Full-time employees under the Award work an average of 38 ordinary hours per week. Any hours worked beyond this are paid at overtime rates.

For day workers, ordinary hours are 4:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday to Friday, for no more than 8 hours per day and a maximum of 28 days. These hours are worked continuously, except for agreed meal breaks (covered below). 

Part-time employees

Part-timers work less than the average of 38 ordinary hours per week. They have a reasonably predictable schedule and are engaged for at least 4 hours per workday. They receive the same entitlements as full-time employees, but on a pro rata basis.

Casual employees

Casuals work on an intermittent or irregular basis. They’re also paid a higher hourly rate than full-time or part-time employees. This includes a 25% casual loading to make up for the lack of entitlements permanent employees receive.

Casual employees are entitled to overtime rates for any work they do that exceeds 38 hours per week. They must also be paid for a minimum of 4 hours each day they’re engaged, even if they work fewer than 4 hours that day.

Waste Management Award classifications

Employees in the waste management industry are classified into levels (1–9) based on their duties, skills, qualifications, experience, and responsibilities.

For details on Levels 6–9, refer to the Award.

Waste Management Award Pay Rates and Entitlements Overview

Minimum base rates

The Waste Management Award sets the minimum pay for employees in the waste management industry. These rates are updated each year, and from 1 July 2025, they increased by 3.5%.

The Award also includes an industry allowance, which reflects the nature of waste management work. It’s an all-purpose allowance, meaning it counts towards overtime, penalty rates, and leave. From 1 July 2025, the industry allowance is $117.40 per week for full-timers, or $3.09 per hour for part-timers and casuals.

Remember: Always use the base rate inclusive of the industry allowance when calculating penalty rates, overtime, and leave.

If an employee works more than one classification level in a day, they must be paid at the highest rate for the whole day and given at least 7 days’ notice before being moved to a lower level.

For details on pay rates for junior employees and trainees, refer to the Award.

Penalty rates

Full-time, part-time, and casual employees (both day workers and shiftworkers) must be paid penalty rates when they work certain times or days within their ordinary hours.

For day workers, any work on Saturday or Sunday counts as overtime because their ordinary hours are Monday to Friday. If they agree to work on the weekend, overtime rates apply.

For shiftworkers, it’s different. If they’re rostered to work on a weekend as part of their normal schedule, they’ll be paid the applicable weekend penalty rate, not overtime. However, if they’re not normally rostered to work on weekends but are asked to work an extra shift on Saturday or Sunday, they’ll be paid at overtime rates for that shift. 

Overtime rules and rates

Waste management day workers who work outside ordinary hours on Monday to Friday or at any time on Saturday must be paid overtime at the following rates:

• Full-time and part-time day workers: 150% (first 2 hours); 200% after.
• Casual day workers: 160% (first 2 hours); 210% after.

There’s also a flat 200% overtime rate for any hours worked on a Sunday.

Shiftworkers must receive the above overtime rates instead of their usual shiftwork rates if:

• They weren’t given at least 48 hours’ notice of the shift.
• The shift isn’t part of their regular roster.
• The shift is either outside their ordinary rostered hours or longer than 8 hours.

When any employee works overtime, they must be given at least 10 consecutive hours off between shifts.

An employer and employee can also agree in writing for the employee to take time off instead of being paid for specific overtime hours worked.

For more information on overtime rules and rates, refer to the Award.

Breaks

The Award sets out these break types:

Allowances 

Under the Award, 2 types of allowances are recognised: 

• Wage-related (extra pay for particular duties or working conditions).
• Expense-related (reimbursement for certain work costs).

Some of the allowances contained in the Award include the following:

For further details of these allowances, check the Award.

Leave entitlements

Most leave comes from the NES, which applies to employees regardless of the award covering them. The Waste Management Award then adds extra rules, especially in relation to annual leave.

Annual leave

These are the fundamentals you need to know:

• Full-time and part-time employees (not casual employees) get:
  • 4 weeks of paid annual leave per year (pro rata for part-time).
  • 5 weeks if they regularly work Sundays and public holidays on a continuous shift roster.
• Employees on annual leave must be paid a shift penalty on top of their base rate of pay as follows:
  • Day workers receive the higher of 17.5% annual leave loading or weekend penalty rates when on leave, but not both.
  • Shiftworkers are paid the higher of 17.5% annual leave loading or their shift and weekend penalties, not both.
• Employers and employees can agree to delay payment of the annual leave loading for single-day absences until the employee has taken at least 5 consecutive days of annual leave.
• Employees may cash out accrued annual leave under a written agreement with their employer, but only up to 2 weeks per year. The agreement must not result in the employee having less than 4 weeks of accrued annual leave.

Other NES leave

Both the NES and the Award cover other types of leave, including:

• Personal/carer’s leave
• Compassionate leave
• Parental leave and related entitlements
• Community service leave
• Family and domestic violence leave

How To Determine Waste Management Award Coverage

To work out which minimum pay rates and conditions you need to follow, you should first check whether the Award actually covers your employees.

Waste Award [MA000043]: A practical, real-world example 

Mark is a 41-year-old driver of a rear-lift waste-collection vehicle (i.e., a garbage truck) with a GVM of approximately 20 tonnes. He’s employed full-time by a private waste collection contractor, and he: 

• Has worked in the waste and recycling industry for 7 years.
• Drives his waste collection vehicle on residential and commercial routes to service local councils as well as commercial customers.
• Works Monday to Friday, rostered from 5:30 am to 1:30 pm, with a 30-minute unpaid meal break on each work day, and occasionally works from 7:30 am to 11:30 am on public holidays that fall on a weekday. 
• Is in sole charge of the vehicle while on waste collection runs, exercising independent judgement while driving and conducting collections, and taking responsibility for vehicle safety, load management, and public safety.
• Works with 2 crew members on his routes, who ride in the vehicle with him and serve as “runners,” assisting with bin handling, manual loading, and route safety.
• Manages route sequencing and traffic hazards independently, and completes run sheets and electronic records.
• Operates hydraulic lifting equipment to empty bins safely and efficiently.

How the Award applies: 

• Coverage: Mark is covered under the Waste Management Award as a driver of a specialised waste-collection vehicle for a private waste-collection contractor.
• Classification and base rate: Mark is a driver in sole charge of a waste management vehicle weighing between 14 and 30 tonnes GVM. He’s classified as Level 5 under the Waste Management Award. His minimum pay is $1,040.20 per week ($27.37 per hour), plus the industry allowance of $117.40 per week ($3.09 per hour), giving a total minimum of $1,157.60 per week ($30.46 per hour).
• Ordinary hours: Mark’s rostered hours of 5:30 am to 1:30 pm, Monday to Friday, fall within the Award’s definition of ordinary hours for waste collection operations (between 4:00 am and 5:00 pm Monday to Friday).
• Penalty rates: Mark doesn’t receive any penalty rates during his normal working week, which is within ordinary hours. However, whenever he works from 7:30 am to 11:30 am on a public holiday that falls on a weekday, he’s entitled to 150% of the ordinary hourly rate for those hours worked.
• Allowances: Mark’s not entitled to a leading hand allowance under the Award because the minimum requirement is to be in charge of 4–8 employees. He also receives the all-purpose industry allowance, covered above.
• Breaks: Because Mark works more than 5 hours per day, he’s entitled to an unpaid meal break of 30–60 minutes within 5 hours and 15 minutes of starting work. 

Common scenarios and compliance tips

Let’s look at the key checks to make for some common scenarios.

1. A private waste contractor hires a “driver” who sometimes drives alone and sometimes works as an offsider

Key checks:

• Confirm whether the employee is in sole charge of the vehicle when they’re driving, and not just doing offsider tasks.
• Classify the employee based on the highest level of work they regularly do, and not just their job title.
• Ensure the correct classification rate applies on days the employee is driving, even if they do offsider work on other days, and apply weekend and public holiday penalty rates when the employee’s ordinary hours fall on those days.
• Check overtime triggers where hours exceed ordinary limits, regardless of whether the employee is driving or doing offsider work.

2. A recycling facility operates with extended hours and introduces afternoon and night shifts

Key checks:

• Determine whether employees are day workers or shiftworkers under the Award (work done during late hours doesn’t automatically mean shiftwork). If they’re engaged as shiftworkers, apply the correct afternoon or night shift penalties.
• Ensure shift penalties are applied only during ordinary shift hours, with overtime applying outside those hours.
• Confirm correct treatment of weekend and public holiday shifts, particularly where shift penalties and weekend penalties intersect.
• Review annual leave payments to ensure the higher of the leave loading or shift penalties is paid when employees take annual leave.

3. A council outsources waste collection to a private contractor, but retains some in-house waste management staff

Key checks:

• Confirm which workers are employed directly by the council and which are employed by the private contractor, and avoid applying council pay structures, allowances, or rules on hours to contractor employees, unless these are lawfully incorporated into employment agreements.
• Make sure council employees remain covered by the relevant state public sector award or council enterprise agreement, not the Waste Management Award.
• Ensure contractor employees are correctly covered by the Waste Management Award, even when working exclusively on council contracts.
• Check that contractor employees receive Award penalties, overtime, and leave entitlements, and not council-based conditions relating to these.

Common employer mistakes to avoid

To ensure compliance and fair practice, avoid these common errors:

• Misclassifying drivers and plant operators, especially when higher classifications apply due to vehicle type, plant tickets, skill level, or responsibility (such as being in sole charge of a vehicle).
• Failing to pay the correct penalties, particularly when operations take place during early mornings, nights, weekends, or public holidays.
• Relying on “above-award” salaries or flat rates without a valid Award-related set-off mechanism, and failing to regularly test whether employees remain better off overall once overtime, penalties, allowances, and Award rate increases are taken into account. 

Glossary

Above-award salary

A salary higher than the Award minimum, intended to cover extra pay like overtime, penalties, or allowances. Employees must still be better off overall than under the Award.

Afternoon shift

A shift where the employee’s ordinary hours finish after 6:30 pm, but no later than 12:30 am. Even if the shift runs slightly past midnight, it’s still treated as the same day under the Award.

All-purpose allowance

An allowance that counts towards all pay calculations, including overtime, penalty rates, and leave, such as the industry allowance.

BOOT (better off overall test)

The FWC’s test to ensure employees are at least as well off under an enterprise agreement as they would be under the Award and NES.

Day work

Work done between 4:00 am and 5:00 pm on Monday to Friday. It’s essentially the non-shiftwork arrangement under the Award.

Night shift

A shift in which an employee’s ordinary hours finish after 12.30 am and either at or before 8:30 am.

Shiftwork

Work that happens over at least 5 consecutive days and follows a regular schedule, either in recurring daily shifts or rotating shifts, including afternoon or night shifts.

Resources and Links

• Waste Award [MA000043]: A Fair Work Ombudsman document summarising who is and isn’t covered under the Australian Waste Management Award.
• Waste Management Award 2020: The full Fair Work Ombudsman document detailing all pay rates, conditions, and classifications under the Waste Management Award.
• Waste Management Award 2010: The original Waste Management Industry Award from the FWC in 2010, which was updated and renamed as the Waste Management Award 2020.
• Downloadable pay guide: Downloadable Waste Management Award pay guide from the Fair Work Ombudsman.

FAQs

Who is covered by the Waste Management Award?

The Waste Management Award covers employers operating fully or primarily in the waste management industry, and their employees who fall within the Award’s classifications. It also covers labour hire businesses and the employees they hire out to work in the waste management industry.

What is a waste management industry award?

The Waste Management Award is a modern national workplace award in Australia. It contains the minimum employment conditions for employers and employees in the waste management industry, including pay rates, hours of work, and leave entitlements. 

What is a Waste Award?

The Waste Award is officially known as the Waste Management Award. The original Waste Award (the Waste Management Award 2010) commenced operation in Australia on 1 January 2010, and was subsequently updated to become the Waste Management Award 2020 from 1 January 2020.

Disclaimer

The information provided here is a summary only and does not constitute legal advice. While we have made every effort to ensure the information provided is up to date and reliable, we cannot guarantee its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your specific situation. Laws change frequently, and outcomes may vary depending on your business circumstances. We recommend consulting a qualified employment lawyer before making decisions related to workforce management. Please note that we cannot be held liable for any actions taken or not taken based on the information presented on this website.

The post Waste Management Award: Pay Rates, Classifications, and Obligations appeared first on Connecteam.

If your business involves the growing or processing of wine grapes, or you’re a labour hire business providing employees for the wine industry, then you’ll need to understand and comply with the Wine Industry Award 2020 [MA000090].

From 1 July 2025, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) increased modern award wages in Australia by 3.5%. As a result, employers covered by the Wine Industry Award 2020 should review all remuneration and entitlements to ensure their employees receive the correct pay.

In this guide, we explain who the Wine Industry Award covers, how to classify employees correctly, and what pay, leave, and penalty rules apply.

The Wine Industry Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers 

This section covers the essentials:

The Wine Industry Award [MA000090] sets minimum employment standards and pay rates for employees in the wine industry, which means those working for businesses involved in the growing or processing of wine grapes.

To ensure compliance, managers must consider:

• Award coverage: Whether the employee is covered by the Wine Industry Award and not, for example, the Hospitality Award, the Restaurant Industry Award, or the Retail Industry Award, depending on their primary duties.
• Employee type: Whether the employee is full-time, part-time, or casual, scheduled as a day worker or shiftworker, or classified as a pieceworker.
• Employee classification: Under the Award, classification ranges from Grade 1 (entry-level employees) to Grade 5 (supervisory and more advanced roles) based on their training, assessment, skills, and competence.
• Hours and timing of work: Whether the employee works on weekends or public holidays, or works overtime.

What to watch out for:

• Incorrect application of overtime and penalty rates during vintage, harvest, and bottling. Extended hours and weekend work can increase the likelihood of underpayment.
• Classifying employees by job title rather than actual duties, and assuming salaries cover overtime, penalties, or allowances, especially during vintage periods.

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

Award Basics

The Wine Industry Award (or Wine Award) is a modern national workplace award. Its purpose is to ensure employees in the wine industry receive fair treatment and correct entitlements under Fair Work rules.

It specifies the minimum employment conditions for employers and employees in the Australian wine industry, covering pay, penalty, and overtime rates, working hours, leave entitlements, and more. 

The Award works in conjunction with the National Employment Standards (NES), which provide 11 basic entitlements, such as leave and notice periods.

Who’s covered under the Wine Industry Award?

Businesses covered by the Award include those involved in the growing and processing of wine grapes, from wine production (including cultivating wine grapes) to the processing, transportation, and storage of wine and wine-related products. 

Employees covered by the Wine Industry Award include:

• Vineyard workers
• Cellar hands
• Cellar door sales staff
• Packing and bottling workers
• Boiler attendants
• Forklift drivers in winery operations
• Laboratory technicians

The Award also covers labour-hire businesses and their hired employees.

Who isn’t covered under the Wine Industry Award?

The Wine Industry Award doesn’t apply to:

• Workers in wine retail stores not connected with a winery.
• Staff working in a restaurant or cafe situated at a winery.
• Tour guides and bus or van drivers employed by businesses offering wine tours.

The Wine Industry Award also doesn’t apply to:

• Employees covered by another modern award.
• Employees excluded from Award coverage by the Fair Work Act 2009.
• Employees (or their employers) covered by a workplace agreement or enterprise award.
• Employees (or their employers) covered by a state public sector award or a transitional state public sector award.

Coverage self-check: Does the Wine Industry Award apply?

Check the following statements to see if you and your employee are covered by the Award:

• I operate a wine industry business (e.g., a vineyard, winery, cellar door, or an integrated grape-growing and winemaking business) and employ staff to carry out wine-related work.
• The employee performs wine industry duties, such as:
  • Vineyard work (grape growing, pruning, or harvesting) 
  • Winery or cellar operations (crushing, fermenting, blending, or storage) 
  • Bottling or packaging 
  • Laboratory or quality control work 
  • Cellar door sales directly connected to winery operations
• The employee’s role falls within the Award’s classifications, based on what they actually do on a day-to-day basis, not just their job title.
• The employee isn’t a managerial or professional employee who genuinely fits within a different higher-level classification under another modern award.
• The employee isn’t covered by a different modern award that more specifically applies to their primary duties (e.g., the Retail Industry Award, if its classifications better fit).
• The employee isn’t covered by an enterprise agreement (EA). If there is one in place, it will generally set pay and conditions.

If these statements apply, the employee is likely covered by the Wine Industry Award.

Determining Wine Award [MA000090] Requirements 

Many of the rules in the Wine Industry Award depend on an employee’s type of employment and their classification. 

Employment types

The Award groups employees into 4 categories:

• Full-time
• Part-time
• Casual
• Pieceworker

Full-time employees

Full-time employees (day workers or shiftworkers) are employed to work an average of 38 ordinary hours per week (or 152 hours over 28 days). Any hours worked beyond this count as overtime.

Ordinary hours must generally be worked continuously (except for meal breaks) and can’t exceed 10 hours on any day, unless by majority agreement.

For day workers, ordinary hours are between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm, Monday to Friday, except when they’re rostered to work at the cellar door or in the vineyard during vintage periods.

Part-time employees

Part-time employees (including part-time shiftworkers) work reasonably predictable hours but fewer than the average of 38 ordinary hours per week and receive the same entitlements as full-time employees on a pro rata basis.

Casual employees

Casual employees (including casual shiftworkers) work intermittently and are paid a higher hourly rate than full-time or part-time employees, with a 25% casual loading as compensation for not receiving certain entitlements that permanent employees get. 

Casual employees must be paid for at least 4 hours each time they’re rostered or called in to work, even if they finish earlier. The only exception is when bad weather interrupts pruning or harvesting, in which case they’ll receive a minimum of 2 hours’ pay.

Pieceworkers

Under the Award, any full-time, part-time, or casual employee can agree with their employer to be paid a piecework rate. This means they become a pieceworker, and the piecework rate replaces the normal minimum pay for their type of employment.

The agreed piecework rate must be high enough for the employee to earn at least 20% more than the minimum hourly rate under the Award for their ordinary hours, based on their employment type and classification.

For pieceworkers, the following rules in the Award don’t apply:

• Ordinary hours and rostering
• Meal allowance for working overtime
• Overtime pay
• Penalty rates

Wine Industry Award classifications

Under the Wine Industry Award, employees are placed in Grades 1–5, which work like skill and responsibility levels. An employee’s grade is based on their skills, qualifications, experience, and the type of tasks they perform. The cellar door sales stream is the only exception, as it only goes up to Grade 4.

Streams are categories of work within the wine industry. The Award covers the following: 

• Bottling stream
• Cellar stream
• Cellar door sales stream
• Laboratory stream
• Vineyard stream
• Warehouse and supply stream
• Coopers stream

An employee’s stream and grade together determine their minimum pay rate and conditions under the Award.

Let’s look at Grades 1–3 as examples:

For details on Grades 4–5 and further role specifics, refer to the Award.

Wine Award Pay Rates and Entitlements Overview

The Award outlines minimum pay rates, penalty rates, and overtime rates, as well as breaks, allowances, and leave.

Minimum base rates 

Let’s look at the minimum rates for adult wine industry employees, Grades 1–3:

For Grades 4–5 and for details on pay rates for unapprenticed junior employees, school-based apprentices and adult apprentices, refer to the Award.

Penalty rates

Penalty rates must be paid to full-time, part-time, and casual employees when they work certain times or days.

Remember: These penalty rates don’t apply to employees classified as pieceworkers under the Award.

Overtime rules and rates

For full-time employees, any time worked outside ordinary hours is considered overtime. 

For part-time and casual employees, overtime rates apply when they work outside their ordinary hours, work more than 38 hours in a week, or exceed the hours agreed between the employer and the majority of employees.

Overtime rates are as follows:

• Monday to Saturday:
  • For the first 2 hours worked outside ordinary hours: 150%
  • After the first 2 hours worked: 200%

• Sunday:
  • For full-time or part-time employees: 200%
  • For casual employees: 225%

• Public holiday:
  • For full-time or part-time employees: 250%
  • For casual employees: 275%

Employers and employees may also agree in writing to take time off instead of receiving payment for a specific overtime period they worked.

As with penalty rates, these overtime rates don’t apply to pieceworkers.

Breaks

The Award sets out the following break types:

For further details on breaks, refer to the Award.

Allowances

Under the Award, allowances fall into wage-related allowances (extra pay for particular responsibilities or working conditions) and expense-related allowances (reimbursements for certain work-related costs).

The allowances contained in the Award include the following:

For full details of each allowance, check the Award.

Leave entitlements

Most leave comes from the NES; the Wine Industry Award then adds additional rules, particularly in relation to annual leave (which we cover below).

Annual leave

Here’s what you need to know about annual leave under the Award:

• Full-time employees: Get 4 weeks of paid annual leave. 
• Part-time employees: Get a pro rata amount based on their hours. 
• 7-day shiftworkers: Get 5 weeks of paid annual leave.

When employees take annual leave, they’re paid extra on top of their base pay:

• Day workers: The higher of 17.5% annual leave loading or the relevant weekend penalty rates (not both).
• Shiftworkers: The higher of 17.5% annual leave loading or the shift penalty (including weekend penalties), not both.
• Pieceworkers: 20% annual leave loading on their minimum pay rate.

Other rules include:

• Annual leave can be converted to hours instead of weeks if the employer and most employees agree (e.g., a full-time employee’s 4 weeks becomes 152 hours).
  
• An employer may require employees to take annual leave in certain circumstances, such as business shutdowns, provided this complies with the NES.
  
• Employees can take leave as it accrues, but taking leave in advance, splitting leave, or cashing out up to 2 weeks a year needs employer agreement, and minimum balances must stay in place.

Other NES leave

Other types of leave covered by both the NES and the Award include personal/carer’s leave, parental leave, and family and domestic violence leave.

How To Determine Wine Industry Award Coverage

Incorrect coverage or classification can mean compliance issues and financial surprises down the line, so double-check your employees are actually covered by the Award. To see how the rules apply in real life, consider the following example:

Wine Award [MA000090]: A practical, real-world example

Sarah is a 29-year-old full-time cellar hand in a winery who:

• Has worked in the cellar stream of the wine industry for 4 years.
• Works 7:00 am to 3:00 pm, Monday to Friday, with a 30-minute unpaid meal break on each workday.
• Works until 5:00 pm each weekday during vintage periods (which can range from 8 to 10 weeks for her winery, from late January to early April).
• Operates pumps, presses, and fermentation tanks in the winery, monitoring fermentation and recording readings.
• Cleans boilers, flues, and other winery equipment when needed.
• Helps with the training of two Grade 1 cellar hands in the winery.
• Works independently for much of her shift with limited supervision, using her own judgement and technical understanding of fermentation processes.

How the Award applies:

• Coverage: Sarah is covered under the Wine Industry Award as a cellar hand in a winery.
• Classification and base rate: Sarah’s duties as a winery employee align with Grade 3 under the cellar stream of the Wine Industry Award, with a minimum rate of $1,012.60 per week or $26.65 per hour. She’s also classified as a day worker rather than a shiftworker, as she works regular daytime hours within the Award’s ordinary hours.
• Allowances: Whenever Sarah is engaged in cleaning boilers and flues in the winery, she’s entitled to 150% of the Grade 3 minimum hourly rate of $26.65 for this work, which is $39.98 per hour. 
• Overtime: Sarah works until 5:00 pm each weekday during vintage periods. This is 2 hours past her normal finish time of 3:00 pm, meaning these additional 2 hours would incur 150% overtime, totalling $79.95 per day.
• Breaks: Because Sarah is a full-time day worker who works more than 5 hours per shift, she’s entitled to an unpaid meal break and a 10-minute rest break on each workday.

Common scenarios and compliance tips

Apply these key checks to common situations in your business.

1. A vineyard uses a mix of casual grape pickers (harvest workers) and permanent part-time vineyard hands during vintage periods

Key checks:

• Confirm that the grape pickers are genuinely engaged on an intermittent or irregular basis, and the part-time employees have predictable hours agreed in writing.
• Ensure the casual grape pickers receive the correct casual loading.
• Check the minimum engagement and payment requirements for casual grape pickers, especially during short picking, packing, or weather-affected shifts.
• Apply separate overtime, penalty, minimum engagement, and rostering rules for the casual and part-time employees.

2. A winery uses the same employees as cellar hands during the week and for cellar door sales duties on weekends and during peak tourism periods

Key checks:

• Identify whether employees are performing mixed functions and whether different classifications or pay rates apply depending on the work they’re performing.
• Ensure weekend and public holiday penalties are correctly applied when employees move into cellar door work.
• Record not just the hours worked, but the type of work that was performed during those hours.
• If flat hourly rates are used, they must leave the employee better off overall compared to applying the correct rate to each duty.

3. A winery temporarily assigns some employees who normally work vineyard or cellar roles to do bottling and packaging work to meet an export shipment deadline

Key checks:

• Confirm that employees are classified at the appropriate bottling/packaging level, particularly where machinery operation or quality control duties apply.
• Check that meal break and rest break timing are observed properly, that ordinary hours aren’t exceeded on a daily and weekly basis, and that overtime rates are applied correctly for extended shifts.
• Determine whether the roster meets the Award’s definition of shiftwork, which may trigger different penalty rates or conditions for afternoon or night work.
• If bottling work attracts a higher classification than the employee’s usual role, pay the higher rate for the hours worked on the bottling line.

Common employer mistakes to avoid

Common compliance errors that wine industry employers need to avoid include:

• Misclassifying employees based on job title rather than actual duties. For example, calling an employee a “manager,” “senior winemaker,” or “supervisor” won’t remove Award coverage if their day-to-day work remains operational or production-focused.
• Failing to pay overtime during the vintage and bottling periods. For example, employers often mistakenly assume that long or irregular seasonal hours for vintage work are built into the Award.
• Using flat salaries without proper set-off or better off overall testing (BOOT) is a common cause of systemic underpayment. It can result in annual salaries that don’t adequately compensate employees for overtime, penalties, allowances, or periods when higher-grade duties are performed.
• Not paying higher rates for mixed or higher-grade duties. This is widespread in wineries, where employees frequently rotate between vineyard, winery, bottling, or cellar door sales roles. They need to be paid the applicable classification rates for all of the hours they work.

Glossary

BOOT (better off overall test)

The FWC uses the BOOT to make sure employees covered by a proposed enterprise agreement (EA) are better off overall than under the relevant modern award (such as the Wine Industry Award).

Minimum engagement

The minimum number of hours an employee must be paid for each time they’re rostered or called in to work, even if they work fewer hours. 

Ordinary hours

The standard Award hours an employee works before overtime or penalty rates apply, usually averaging 38 hours per week.

Piecework

A pay arrangement where an employee is paid based on how much work they complete (e.g., per item or task), instead of being paid by the hour or week.

Shiftworker

An employee who is rostered to work shifts that fall outside standard daytime hours, such as afternoon, night, or rotating shifts, and who is entitled to specific shift penalties and break rules under the Award.

7-day shiftworker

An employee who works a rostered shift pattern that includes regular work on Sundays and public holidays.

Resources and Links

• Wine Award [MA000090]: A Fair Work Ombudsman document summarising who is and isn’t covered under the Australian Wine Industry Award.
• Wine Industry Award 2020: The full Fair Work Ombudsman document detailing all pay rates, conditions, and classifications under the Wine Industry Award.
• Downloadable Pay Guide: Downloadable Wine Industry Award pay guide from the Fair Work Ombudsman.
• Wine Industry Award 2010: The original Wine Industry Award from the FWC in 2010, which was updated and renamed as the Wine Industry Award 2020. 

FAQs

What is a wine industry award?

The Wine Industry Award 2020 [MA000090] is a modern Australian workplace award that sets out the minimum employment conditions for employers and their employees in the Australian wine industry. It includes details on pay rates, working hours, leave entitlements, and other conditions.

What is the minimum pay in the wine award?

Minimum pay in the Wine Industry Award starts at $935.50 per week (or $24.62 per hour) for a Grade 1 adult employee in their first 6 months. Rates increase with experience, higher grades, casual loading, or if the employee is a pieceworker, as set out in the Award.

Who is covered by the wine industry award?

The Wine Industry Award covers business owners involved in the wine industry, meaning the growing and processing of wine grapes, as well as their employees who fit within the Award’s classifications. It also covers labour hire businesses and the employees they hire out to the wine industry.

Disclaimer

The information provided here is a summary only and does not constitute legal advice. While we have made every effort to ensure the information provided is up to date and reliable, we cannot guarantee its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your specific situation. Laws change frequently, and outcomes may vary depending on your business circumstances. We recommend consulting a qualified employment lawyer before making decisions related to workforce management. Please note that we cannot be held liable for any actions taken or not taken based on the information presented on this website.

The post Wine Industry Award: Pay Rates, Classifications, and Obligations appeared first on Connecteam.

Starting your own cleaning business can be a real opportunity in Australia’s A$18.05 billion cleaning industry, but getting set up can feel overwhelming.

It’s a lot to juggle: choosing your services, working out licences and insurance, sorting your ABN and tax registrations, and budgeting for start-up costs. Miss a step early on, and you can lose time (and money) fixing it later.

Whether you’re setting up a residential, commercial, or specialty service, this step-by-step guide will walk you through how to start a cleaning company in Australia, so you can get set up properly and start taking on jobs with confidence.

Starting a Cleaning Company in Australia: A Step-by-Step Guide

Here are 8 key steps to follow when starting your cleaning business in Australia:

There’s a wide range of cleaning services you can choose from, including:

• Residential cleaning, including regular cleans, deep cleans, and carpet cleaning for apartments and homes.
• Commercial cleaning, such as in office buildings, retail, or hospitality venues.
• Builders’ (or post-construction) cleaning.
• Graffiti removal.
• High-pressure cleaning.
• Car washing and detailing.
• Eco-friendly cleaning services.
• Pet-friendly cleaning services.

As you’ll see below, the kind of cleaning you offer influences factors such as insurance, licensing, and start-up costs. 

With your services selected, you next need to choose how to structure your business. Popular options in Australia are:

• Sole trader, where you run the business by yourself. (Note: You can hire employees as a sole trader.) It’s straightforward and inexpensive to set up and run, but you’re responsible for the business’s debts. A sole trader structure can be a good choice if you’re just entering the cleaning industry or want to start small.
• Partnership, where you run the business with 1 or more other partners. Partnerships are a bit more complex to set up and run than the sole trader structure. They can be a good option if you have someone in mind to share the responsibilities of running a business. 
• Company, where you create a separate legal entity to run your business. This means that you’re not personally responsible for the business’s debts. Company structures are more complicated to set up and run, but can be a good choice if you intend to grow your cleaning business significantly. 

Once you’ve picked your structure, you’ll need an Australian Business Number (ABN). An ABN is a unique identifier for tax purposes. All business structures can register for an ABN, provided they meet the requirements. 

If you’re running your cleaning business as a sole trader and earn under A$75,000 a year (the goods and services tax threshold), registering for an ABN is usually not compulsory. But it’s a good idea to get one anyway. It’s free and makes tax time much easier. Plus, if you don’t have an ABN, other businesses that pay you must withhold 47% tax. 

If you start a company, you’ll need to register with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) and get an Australian Company Number (ACN). 

Regardless of your structure, you can register your business name if you’re operating under a name that isn’t your own (or your partner’s or a registered company’s name). Current registration fees are A$45 for 1 year and A$104 for 3 years. 

Your cleaning business will have to pay taxes at both the federal and possibly state levels. 

To start with, you need to apply for a Tax File Number (TFN) for your business. Sole traders can use their individual TFNs to run their business. 

In addition to the usual taxes on profit, here are some other taxes your cleaning business may need to pay:

• Goods and services tax (GST): Register for GST if you expect your GST turnover (gross income minus GST) to exceed A$75,000 in your first year of operation or 21 days after reaching this threshold. GST is 10% of your service fees. 
• Fringe benefits tax (FBT): You may need to register to pay FBT if you provide benefits other than salaries or wages to employees, such as parking. The current FBT rate is 47%. 
• Taxable payments annual reports (TPAR): Cleaning businesses must lodge a TPAR each year if they have an ABN and hired contractors or subcontractors during the year. 
• Pay as you go withholding (PAYG): You may need to withhold specific amounts of income tax from employees’ pay and send it to the tax office. PAYG rates vary depending on workers’ earnings and other factors. 
• Payroll tax: State payroll taxes apply to employers who pay employees above a certain wage threshold in a year. Rates vary between 4% to 6.85%. 

Next, check your state and territory requirements to see what insurance you need for a cleaning business. Even if you’re not required to have it, many business owners choose to take out insurance to protect their business due to the risks associated with cleaning work. 

Here are several types of insurance you should consider for your cleaning business:

• Public liability: This insurance protects your business in the event of negligent property damage or injuries to others, such as a cleaner knocking over a client’s computer monitor while dusting it or tripping over a vacuum power lead. It’s one of the most important policies for any cleaning business to have. Starts at around A50 a month. 
• Portable equipment: If you own pricey equipment, such as industrial vacuum systems or floor polishers, portable equipment insurance is a must. This insurance provides coverage for items that are damaged, destroyed, or stolen. Depending on the coverage, it starts at around A$60 a month. 
• Compulsory third-party (CTP): If your business has vehicles, you must have compulsory third-party insurance in the event you or an employee injures someone else while driving. Starts at around $300 a year. 
• Workers’ compensation: Workers’ compensation insurance is compulsory for most employers. It provides benefits to employees who are injured or become unwell due to work. Check with your state or territory regulator for more information. Starts at around A$70 a month (varies depending on the number of workers you have). 

An insurance broker can advise you on what types of insurance you need to protect your cleaning business, where you can get it, and the insurance packages that save you money. You can usually find a list of insurance brokers on your local regulator’s website. 

The Australian cleaning industry isn’t heavily regulated, and you won’t need a general business licence. 

However, you may need other licences for your business or employees, depending on the type of cleaning services you offer and where you operate. 

For example:

• In Queensland, builders’ cleaners must hold a general construction induction training card (also known as a white card in several states) to work safely on construction sites. 
• Most states require high-rise window washers to hold a high-risk work licence due to the specialised equipment they use. 
• In many states, if you hire out workers to other businesses (which is common in the cleaning industry), you must apply for a labour hire licence. 

To learn more, head to the Australian Business Licence and Information Service (ABLIS). It’s an excellent resource for licences, registrations, and other legal information you need when starting your cleaning business. 

If you’re planning on hiring staff, here’s what you need to know:

Labour laws

First, you need to be clear about whether you’re hiring employees or engaging independent contractors. Different types of workers have different rights and obligations.

There are specific legal tests to work out whether someone is an employee or an independent contractor. Generally, an employee works for you, and you have control over how and when they work. An independent contractor works for themselves, may have several clients, and usually sets their own fees. 

When it comes to your employees’ rights, follow the requirements set out in the:

• Fair Work Act 2009.
• National Employment Standards.
• Cleaning Services Award 2020 (this applies to most cleaning employees in Australia).
• Relevant state or territory labour laws, including those relating to employment discrimination, workers’ compensation, workplace health and safety, and labour hire.

Superannuation

As an employer, you need to contribute to eligible employees’ superannuation (i.e., pension) accounts each pay period. 

To learn more about when and how to make these contributions, check out the Australian Taxation Office (ATO)’s guide on superannuation for workers.

Police checks

Cleaning staff enter private homes and businesses after hours unsupervised. For this reason, consider asking successful candidates to provide police checks before hiring them. 

Keep in mind that you can only obtain a police check with the employee’s permission, and you must comply with relevant laws, including the Fair Work Act 2009, Privacy Act 1988, and state or territory anti-discrimination laws. 

Workplace health and safety

Given that cleaners often work with potentially hazardous chemicals or in hazardous environments, workplace health and safety (WHS) is a significant concern. 

SafeWork Australia is a good starting point for general WHS information. However, check with your state or territory authority to find out which WHS laws and standards apply to you. 

Certifications

Many cleaners have plenty of hands-on experience but may not have formal qualifications. Helping your staff gain recognised cleaning certifications can improve the quality of your services and show clients that your business takes training and professionalism seriously.

Beneficial cleaning qualifications include Certificates II and III in Cleaning Operations, which cover topics like infection control, chemical handling, and safe work practices. 

These are often available through technical and further education (TAFE) institutes and private training providers, such as the Australian Cleaning Academy. 

You can help your employees gain certifications by contributing to course costs, offering flexible hours or paid study time, and recognising completed training with pay rises or new opportunities.

Before you take on more jobs, set up a few simple systems so work doesn’t fall through the cracks as you grow:

• Rostering: who’s doing what, where, and when (and how you’ll handle last-minute changes).
• Checklists and standards: what “done” looks like for each type of clean, plus photo or sign-off if needed.
• Timesheets and job records: start/finish times, notes, and incident reports in one place.
• Docs and training: safety info, chemical handling instructions, site notes, and onboarding.

You can run this with spreadsheets and messaging apps at first, but many cleaning businesses move to an all-in-one ops app as the team grows. For example, Connecteam can help you manage schedules, cleaning checklists, digital forms, staff documents, and in-app team communication in one place.

The cleaning tools and supplies your business needs depend on the services you offer. 

To get started, here are some common essentials for different types of cleaning:

• Residential cleaning: Household cleaning products, vacuum, mop and bucket, microfibre cloths, spray bottles, and rubber gloves. Estimated total cost: A$200–A$800.
• High-pressure cleaning: Cleaning products, high-pressure washers and nozzles, extension hoses, water tanks, non-slip boots, and goggles. Estimated total cost: A$400–A$5,000+.
• Builders’ cleaning: Industrial vacuum cleaner, paint scrapers, cleaning chemicals, skip bins, steel-capped boots, masks, and safety glasses. Estimated total cost: A$1,000 to A$10,000+.

The best way to get clients for your cleaning business depends on the type of services you offer. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Residential cleaning: Rely on word of mouth and referral programs, post in local Facebook or community groups, deliver flyers in your area, and advertise your services on online job platforms like Gumtree or Airtasker, where people often hire cleaners. 
• Commercial cleaning: Cold-call or email local businesses, network on LinkedIn, partner with local real estate agents or property managers to refer customers, create a Google Business Profile so you appear in local searches, and consider targeted Google or Facebook ads.
• Builders’ cleaning: Advertise in online trade magazines, join local business or construction networking groups, build partnerships with construction firms, and approach site managers directly to offer your services.

No matter the size of your business, it’s also a good idea to register a domain name and create a simple website so potential clients can find and contact you easily. For design tips and inspiration, check out Connecteam’s guide on websites for cleaning businesses.

Additionally, you can join the National Australian Cleaners Association (NACLA) for professional support and to be listed in their directory of recommended cleaners. 

How Much Does It Cost To Start a Cleaning Services Company in Australia?

The cost to set up a cleaning business varies widely depending on the company’s size, structure, and the services it provides. 

For example, if you’re a sole trader offering home cleaning services, your costs for the first month might look like this:

• Business name registration: A$45
• Insurance: A$135 per month
• Tools and equipment: A$400
• Marketing: A$150

Estimated first-month total: A$730

If you’re starting a larger cleaning business with 5 or more employees, your first-month costs might be:

• Business name registration: A$104
• Insurance: A$1,200 per month
• Tools and equipment: A$9,000
• Marketing: A$2,000

Estimated first-month total: A$12,304

FAQs

Disclaimer

The information in this guide is intended as an overview for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. While we have made every effort to ensure the information is up-to-date and reliable, we cannot guarantee its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your specific situation. Employment laws change frequently, and outcomes may vary depending on your specific circumstances. For guidance, consult the relevant federal and local authorities, speak with an employment lawyer, and seek the advice of an accountant. Please note we cannot be held liable for any actions taken or not taken based on the information presented on this website.

The post How to Start a Cleaning Company in Australia appeared first on Connecteam.

If you run a business providing social and community services, crisis accommodation, family day care scheme services, disability support, or home care (including aged care in the home), and you employ staff to deliver those services, you’re likely covered by the SCHADS Award [MA000100].

From 1 July 2022, the SCHADS Award introduced specific broken shift allowances, and from 1 July 2025, the Annual Wage Review increased all minimum award rates and allowances by 3.5%.

In this guide, we’ll break down who the Award covers, how to classify roles, and the key pay and conditions you need to apply.

The SCHADS Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers

Short on time? This section covers the essentials.

The Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award 2010 [MA000100] sets minimum pay rates and conditions for many roles in social and community services, crisis accommodation, family day care schemes, disability services, and home care.

To stay compliant, managers must consider:

• Award coverage: Whether the role is covered by SCHADS rather than a more specific award (e.g., Aged Care, Nurses, Children’s Services, or Health Services).
• Employee type: Whether the employee is full-time, part-time, or casual (this affects loading, minimum engagement, and overtime triggers).
• Employee classification: Which SCHADS schedule and level applies (Schedules B–F, with some streams using pay points within levels).
• Hours and timing of work: Whether work is on weekends/public holidays, shiftwork, overtime, or broken shifts (these can change pay rates).

Also, watch out for common compliance slip-ups:

• Home Care—Aged Care rates are now set by levels (with Schedule G transition rules for some employees), plus minimum engagement and broken shift rules can also change what you owe.
• Most underpayments happen when employers pick the wrong schedule or level, miss weekend/public holiday or overtime rules, or forget to apply common allowances (like vehicle, on-call, or broken shift).

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

Award Basics

The Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award [MA000100] sets the minimum pay rates and key working conditions for many employees working in Australia’s social and community services, crisis accommodation, home care, and family day care scheme sectors. It typically covers roles delivering services such as social/community support, disability services, and home care (personal care, domestic assistance, or home maintenance in a private residence).

The Award helps ensure staff are paid fairly and receive the correct core entitlements. That includes minimum base rates, penalty rates, overtime, breaks, rostering rules, allowances, and leave-related conditions set out in the Award.

The Award operates alongside the National Employment Standards (NES) (the minimum standards that apply to most Australian employees). Under the Award, the NES and the Award together contain the minimum conditions of employment for covered employees.

Who’s covered under the SCHADS Award?

Businesses covered

You’re generally covered by the Award if your business fits within the Award’s classifications and operates in one of these sectors: 

• Crisis assistance and supported housing services.
• Social and community services, including work like social work, recreation work, welfare work, youth work, or community development work.
• Home care (personal care, domestic assistance, or home maintenance for an older person or a person with disability in a private residence).
• Family day care scheme services.

Employees covered

Examples include:

• Clerical/admin employees (in the family day care and social/community services sectors)
• Social workers
• Community development workers
• Welfare workers
• Youth workers
• Crisis accommodation workers
• Supervisors in a group home
• Home-based personal care/aged care/nursing assistant roles

The Award can also cover labour hire businesses and their employees when they’re placed with an organisation in the sectors above.

Who isn’t covered under the SCHADS Award?

The Award generally doesn’t cover family day care educators or carers who provide child care. It’s more commonly used for roles in family day care schemes (like coordinators and admin).

The Award also doesn’t apply when the employer or employee is covered by one of these awards:

• Aged Care Award
• Children’s Services Award
• Health Services Award
• Nurses Award

Coverage self-check: Does the SCHADS Award apply?

Consider whether the following statements apply to your business and the role you’re checking:

• I operate in social and community services, crisis accommodation/supported housing, home care, or a family day care scheme (e.g., a disability support provider, homelessness service, home care provider, or family day care scheme operator).
• The employee does work covered by SCHADS classifications (e.g., community or welfare worker, crisis accommodation worker).
• The employee is not better covered by another Award (e.g., Aged Care).
• There’s no enterprise agreement/instrument (or enterprise award) covering the employee.

If most of these apply, the employee is likely covered by the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award.

Determining Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award [MA000100] Requirements

Under the SCHADS Award, employees are usually grouped in 2 main ways:

1. By employment type (full-time, part-time, or casual), which affects things like rostering and minimum engagement.

2. By classification. This is based on what the employee does day-to-day, as well as the skills, training, and responsibilities the role requires. 

The Award uses 5 main classification streams: 

• Social and Community Services
• Crisis Accommodation
• Family Day Care
• Home Care—Disability Care
• Home Care—Aged Care 

Employees are then classified into levels (e.g., Levels 1–8 for the Social and Community Services stream).

Employment types

The Award uses 3 main employment types: full-time, part-time, and casual.

Full-time

A full-time employee works 38 ordinary hours per week, averaged over a maximum of 4 weeks.
Ordinary hours can be rostered as: 

• 5 x 8-hour shifts per week, 76 hours over a fortnight (10 x 8-hour shifts).
• 152 hours over 4 weeks (19 x 8-hour shifts), and by agreement, can be worked up to 10 hours per shift.

For day workers, ordinary hours are 6.00 am to 8.00 pm, Monday to Sunday.

Full-timers are ongoing staff and usually get the standard entitlements that apply to permanent employees (like paid annual leave).

Part-time

A part-time employee works less than 38 hours per week (or an average of less than 38) and has reasonably predictable hours. Employees generally receive the same core conditions as full-time employees, but key entitlements such as annual leave are paid based on hours worked.

Employees must be paid for a minimum number of hours each time they work. For Social and Community Services employees, this minimum is 3 hours per shift (or per part of a broken shift), unless they’re doing disability services work.

For all other employees, the minimum payment is 2 hours per shift.

Casual

Casual employees are paid an hourly rate (1/38th of the weekly rate) plus a 25% casual loading. The same minimum shift payment rules for part-time employees also apply to casuals.

SCHADS Award classifications streams and levels

SCHADS award levels explained:

In the SCHADS Award, levels group employees by the complexity of their work and the skill, training, and responsibility required for the role, which determines their minimum pay.

Below are 2 examples (out of the 5 streams):

Social and Community Services

The Social and Community Services stream groups employees into levels 1–8. Below, we highlight Levels 1 and 2 as examples.

You can find full details in Schedule B of the Award.

Home Care—Disability Care

The Home Care—Disability Care stream groups employees into levels 1–5. Below, we highlight Levels 1 and 2 as examples.

You can find full details in Schedule E of the Award. 

If you employ staff in other SCHADS streams, the Award sets out separate level definitions for each stream in its own schedule.

• Schedule C—Crisis Accommodation (Levels 1–4): Work supporting people in short-term or emergency housing services (e.g., crisis support worker, residential support worker, shelter/team leader).
• Schedule D—Family Day Care (Levels 1–5): Work in a family day care scheme/service (not the educator providing care), helping run, coordinate, and support carers (e.g., family day care coordinator, field/visiting officer, admin/support officer).
• Schedule F—Home Care—Aged Care (Levels 1–6): Work providing care and support to older people in their own home (e.g., home care worker/personal carer, domestic assistant, home care team leader).

SCHADS Award Pay Rates and Entitlements

Under the SCHADS Award, the pay rates and entitlements set the minimum standards for what you must pay covered employees, as well as the key rules for hours, overtime and penalty rates, allowances, and leave.

Minimum base rates

The Award sets minimum base rates for each classification, which are the minimum weekly and hourly pay rates you must pay employees.

Pay points are the “steps” within a classification level (e.g., Level 1—pay point 1, pay point 2). They’re used in some SCHADS streams to reflect progression within the same level.

Note: Home Care—Aged Care employees now use levels only (Levels 1–6) in the main pay table (not pay points).

Further, Schedule G is a transition table for employees who were already covered by SCHADS on or before 31 December 2024 (and for some who moved across from the Nurses Award 2020), so their old classification or pay structure can be translated to the new level system without losing the correct minimum rate.

Let’s look at how levels and pay points are organised for 2 of the streams in this Award:

Social and Community Services

Home Care Employees—Aged Care

Let’s see how the minimum base rate works, using a Social and Community Services employee (Level 1, pay point 1).

If they worked full-time, they’d earn the current minimum weekly rate of $999.40/week. If they worked 20 hours per week part-time, you’d pay them $26.30/hour, which would total $526/week (20 × $26.30).

If they were engaged as a casual employee, they’d earn the same base rate of $26.30/hour, plus a 25% casual loading ($6.58/hour), which brings their casual rate to $32.88/hour. So over 20 hours, they’d earn $657.60/week (20 × $32.88).

For the full list of levels, pay points, and other SCHADS Award pay rates, refer to the SCHADS Award Pay Guide.

Penalty rates

Penalty rates are higher pay rates that apply when an employee works certain shifts or times (e.g., weekends, public holidays, or late/overnight shifts).

Note: If someone works on a public holiday, you pay the public holiday rate instead of any weekend or shift penalties. 

For broken shifts, the day can span up to 12 hours. If it goes beyond 12 hours, the extra time is paid at double time (200%). This rule applies whenever a broken shift is worked (it’s not limited to specific days of the week).

These weekend penalties don’t apply to overtime worked on Saturday/Sunday. In that case, you pay the applicable overtime rate (not the weekend penalty rate), and they’re not added on top of shift premiums.

Now, let’s understand how the rates work. Let’s say a Home Care—Aged Care (Level 2) employee earns $32.86 per ordinary hour.

If they work ordinary hours on Saturday, they’re paid 150%, which is $49.29/hour ($32.86 × 1.5). Minimum payment is 2 hours’ pay per shift (or per period in a broken shift).

If they work ordinary hours on Sunday, they’re paid 200%, which is $65.72/hour ($32.86 × 2). Minimum payment is 2 hours’ pay.

For casuals, weekend rates are already inclusive of the 25% loading (e.g., Saturday is 175%, which is $57.51/hour), so you pay the casual weekend rate, not “casual loading + weekend penalty.”

For more details (including other penalty rules that may apply), refer to the Award.

Overtime rules and rates

SCHADS Award overtime is the higher pay rate that applies when an employee works approved hours outside their ordinary hours (e.g., extra hours on top of their rostered ordinary hours).

Overtime rates are as follows:

Note: Overtime worked on a Sunday is paid at double time (200%). So if the Sunday hours are overtime hours, you pay 200% overtime (not the Sunday penalty for ordinary hours).

To put overtime into practice, let’s say a Social and Community Services employee (Level 1, pay point 1) earns $26.30 per ordinary hour.

If they work 2 hours of overtime on Thursday, you pay 150% for those hours (150% for the first 3 hours), which is $39.45/hour ($26.30 × 1.5).

After the first 3 overtime hours that day, any further overtime is paid at 200%, or $52.60/hour ($26.30 × 2).

For casuals, overtime is worked out on the casual hourly rate (which already includes the 25% casual loading), so you don’t add casual loading again on top of overtime.

For more overtime rules (including the break after overtime and time off in lieu), it’s worth checking the Award directly.

Breaks

Under the SCHADS Award, breaks are the rest periods employees must be given during their work (like meal and tea breaks).

For full details on breaks, check the Award.

Allowances

Allowances are extra payments (or reimbursements) that may be applied on top of the minimum base rate when someone works under specific conditions, incurs work-related costs, or takes on additional responsibilities.

Full current allowance amounts are listed in the Allowances Sheet.

Leave entitlements

Most leave comes from the NES, which applies no matter which award an employee is under. The SCHADS Award then adds some extra annual leave rules for certain employees. 

Annual leave

Let’s look at the key information for annual leave:

• Who gets annual leave: Full-time employees get 4 weeks paid annual leave each year. Part-time employees get the same entitlement based on hours worked. Casual employees don’t get paid annual leave (they’re paid casual loading instead).
• Special rule for some nursing assistants (moved from Nurses Award): If someone was covered by the Nurses Award 2020 on 31 December 2024 and became covered by SCHADS as a nursing assistant, they keep the same annual leave quantum as under the Nurses Award (which includes an additional week).
• Annual leave loading: 17.5% of the ordinary rate (on top of ordinary pay).
• Annual leave in advance: Annual leave may be taken early with a written agreement specifying the amount of leave and the start date.
• Cashing out annual leave: Only by written agreement. Employees must keep at least 4 weeks of accrued leave and can cash out up to 2 weeks in any 12 months.
• Excessive leave accruals: The Award has extra rules for managing large annual leave balances. “Excessive” is more than 8 weeks (or 10 weeks for shiftworkers).

For full details (including shiftworker annual leave rules), refer to the Award.

Other NES leave

The NES also provides other types of leave that apply to most employees, including those under this Award. These include:

• Personal/carer’s leave and compassionate leave
• Parental leave
• Family and domestic violence leave
• Community service leave
• Long service leave
• Ceremonial Leave

How To Determine SCHADS Award Coverage

Correct Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award coverage helps you pay people properly from day 1, including identifying the right classification level, minimum rates, and penalty or overtime rules, and reduces the risk of payroll mistakes later.

SCHADS Award [MA000100]: A practical, real-world example

To see how the rules stack up in real life, here’s a simple community services scenario:

A 20-year-old part-time community services worker:

• Supports community programs and provides general support under guidance.
• Works 20 ordinary hours across the week.
• Later that week, works an extra 2 hours (pushing total weekly hours above 38).

How the Award applies:

• Coverage: Covered under the SCHADS Award (because the work is in Social and Community Services).
• Classification and base rate: Social and Community Services employee Level 2, pay point 1, with a minimum of $34.58 per hour (ordinary hours).
• Overtime: The extra 2 hours above 38 hours for the week are paid at 150% (time and a half) for part-time employees (first 2 overtime hours). That’s $51.87 per hour ($34.58 × 1.5).

Pay summary:

Common scenarios and compliance tips

1. Not-for-profit hires a “team leader” who mostly does frontline support work

Key checks:

• Coverage under the SCHADS Award likely applies (check Schedule B–F classification streams).
• Classify based on duties actually performed (not the job title).
• Apply the correct minimum rate (level or pay point where relevant) and track progression.

2. Home care provider rosters weekend work for permanent and casual carers

Key checks:

• Apply weekend penalties for ordinary hours (Saturday/Sunday) and public holiday rates when they apply.
• For casuals, use the inclusive weekend/public holiday rates (don’t add loading again).
• Check minimum engagement rules for each shift (and broken shift rules where used).

3. A community services employee works extra hours on a weekday

Key checks:

• Confirm whether the extra hours are overtime under the Award (rules differ by classification stream and employment type).
• Apply the correct overtime rate (e.g., Social and Community Services: 150% for the first 3 hours, then 200% Mon–Sat).
• Remember, overtime rates replace (don’t stack with) weekend/shift penalties.

4. Employer requires staff to use their own car or be on call

Key checks:

• Pay the vehicle allowance when employees are authorised to use their own vehicle for work.
• Pay on-call allowance when employees are required to be on call.
• Keep clear records (kilometres, on-call periods, approvals).

Common employer mistakes to avoid

• Using job titles (e.g., “coordinator”) instead of duties to classify roles.
• Forgetting minimum engagement rules (especially for part-time/casual and broken shifts).
• Double-counting casual loading (adding it on top of inclusive casual penalty rates).
• Applying weekend penalties to overtime, or stacking penalties/shift loadings incorrectly.
• Missing common allowances (vehicle, meal, on-call, broken shift) or not recording them properly.

Glossary

Annual leave quantum

The total amount of annual leave an employee is entitled to (e.g., 4 weeks per year, or 5 weeks for eligible shiftworkers).

Broken shift

A shift split into 2 work periods on the same day, with an unpaid break in between (e.g., 7:00–10:00 am, then 4:00–7:00 pm).

Loading

An extra percentage paid on top of the base rate (e.g., 25% casual loading instead of paid leave).

Ordinary hours

The standard hours an employee is rostered to work at their base rate (before overtime applies).

Roster

A work schedule that sets out an employee’s shifts, start and finish times, and days they’ll work.

Shift premium

An extra percentage paid on top of the ordinary rate when an employee works certain shifts (e.g., extra pay for afternoon or night shifts).

Resources and Links

For further reading and official resources, visit:

• Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 [MA000100]: The official Award text.
• Fair Work Information Statement (FWIS): A summary of employee rights and employer responsibilities under the NES.
• Fair Work Record-Keeping Requirements: Guidance on pay slips, pay records, and what employers need to keep.
• Annual Leave Cash-Out Agreement: A ready-to-use agreement template.
• Annual Leave in Advance Agreement: A template for agreeing to annual leave in advance.

FAQs

What categories are in the SCHADS Award?

The SCHADS Award has 5 main “classification streams”: 

• Social and Community Services
• Crisis Accommodation
• Family Day Care
• Disability Services
• Home Care

What is Level 6 classification in SCHADS?

“Level 6” is a higher classification level within a particular stream (so the duties depend on the stream). For example, in Home Care—Aged Care, Level 6 is typically a team leader role.

What is the hourly rate for a disability support worker in Australia?

It depends on classification, but under SCHADS minimums, a common benchmark is Home Care—Disability Care Level 2, pay point 1: $27.55/hour (ordinary hours) (current as of 1 Oct 2025).

Disclaimer

The information provided here is a summary only and does not constitute legal advice. While we have made every effort to ensure the information provided is up to date and reliable, we cannot guarantee its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your specific situation. Laws change frequently, and outcomes may vary depending on your business circumstances. We recommend consulting a qualified employment lawyer before making decisions related to workforce management. Please note that we cannot be held liable for any actions taken or not taken based on the information presented on this website.

The post Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award appeared first on Connecteam.

If you run a business providing health care services (including medical, dental, and pathology) and you employ staff to deliver those services or support the day-to-day running of the practice, you’re likely covered by the Health Professionals and Support Services Award [MA000027].

From 1 July 2021, [MA000027] was varied to operate as both an industry and an occupational award, expanding its coverage to include certain health professional roles outside traditional health settings, as well as roles within the health industry. And more recently, from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2025, the Annual Wage Review increased minimum award wages by 3.5%.

In this guide, we explain who the Award covers, how to place roles at the right level, and the main pay and conditions employers need to get right.

The Health Services Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers

Pressed for time? This section gives you the main takeaways.

The Health Professionals and Support Services Award [MA000027] sets the minimum pay rates and key working conditions for many health industry employers and employees whose roles fit the Award’s classifications (including support services and health professional roles).

To stay compliant, managers should check:

• Award coverage: This Award is often confused with awards like the Nurses Award and the SCHADS Award, depending on the work actually performed.
• Employee type: Full-time, part-time, and casual employees can have different pay outcomes (including casual loading and minimum engagement rules).
• Employee classification: Roles generally fall into Support Services Levels (1–9) or Health Professional Levels (1–4).
• Hours and timing of work: Weekend work, public holidays, and overtime can trigger higher rates. The Award also sets different “day worker” time spans depending on the type of practice.

A common “trip point” is treating late finishes as ordinary time, or paying the wrong weekend/casual rate (weekend rates for casuals already include loading).

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

Award Basics

The Health Professionals and Support Services Award [MA000027] sets the minimum pay rates and key working conditions for many employees in the health industry, including health professionals and support services workers.

The Award covers core minimum conditions like minimum pay rates, penalty rates (including weekends and public holidays), overtime, ordinary hours and rostering rules, and allowances.

The Award works alongside the National Employment Standards (NES), which set the minimum legal entitlements for most employees (including core leave and public holiday rules). The Award then adds health-industry minimum pay rates and extra conditions on top of the NES.

Who’s covered under the Health Services Award?

This Award applies to employers in the health industry and their employees, including employers who hire health professionals. 

Industries covered

The “health industry” includes the delivery of:

• Health care
• Medical services
• Pathology services
• Dental services

Businesses covered

Common settings it can apply to include:

• Medical centres and GP-style clinics (for support roles)
• Allied health clinics (physio, chiro, psychology, OT)
• Dental clinics
• Pathology services and labs
• Imaging services, such as radiology or sonography practices

Employees covered

It commonly covers:

• Support services roles (e.g., medical receptionists, cleaners, gardeners, laundry hands, cooks)
• Health professional roles (e.g., physiotherapists, chiropractors, psychologists or counsellors, occupational therapists in many settings, pharmacists, podiatrists, dieticians)

It can also cover labour-hire businesses and their employees when they’re placed with an organisation in the health industry or when they’re working as health professionals.

Who isn’t covered under the Health Services Award?

This Award doesn’t cover doctors, nurses, and paramedics, who are covered by these awards instead:

• Medical Practitioners Award
• Nurses Award
• Ambulance Award
• Aged Care Award
• Aboriginal Health Award

If you’re in the social and community services space, it’s worth double-checking whether the role is actually a health professional role that should sit under this Award or the SCHADS Award. 

Coverage self-check: Does the Health Services Award apply?

To see whether your business and the role you’re evaluating fit the Health Services Award, check the following statements:

• I operate in the health industry (e.g., providing health care, medical services, pathology services, or dental services).
• The employee’s day-to-day duties fit within a classification in this Award, whether they’re in a health professional or a support services role.
• The employee isn’t a medical practitioner (doctor, GP, or surgeon) who is covered under the Medical Practitioners Award [insert link].
• The role isn’t better covered by a different modern award (if more than one award could apply, the most appropriate award depends on the work and work environment).
• There’s no enterprise agreement/enterprise instrument or modern enterprise award covering the employee.

If most of these apply, the employee is likely covered by the Health Professionals and Support Services Award [MA000027].

Determining Health Services Award [MA000027] Requirements 

Under the Health Professionals and Support Services Award, employees are usually grouped in 2 main ways:

1. By employment type (full-time, part-time, or casual), which affects things like rostering, casual loading, and minimum engagement.
2. By classification, which is based on what the employee does day to day (not just their job title), plus the skills/qualifications and level of responsibility the role requires.

Employment types

The Health Support Services Award uses 3 main employment types: full-time, part-time, and casual.

Full-time

A full-time employee works 38 ordinary hours per week on average (averaged over a fortnight or up to 4 weeks). Ordinary hours can be worked up to 10 hours a day (meal breaks don’t count).

The default day workers‘ span is 6:00 am to 6:00 pm (Monday to Friday). 

Full-time workers are regular staff and usually get the standard permanent entitlements (like paid annual leave).

Part-time

A part-time employee works less than 38 hours per week (or an average of less than 38) and has a regular, predictable pattern of hours. They generally get the same core conditions as full-time employees, but key entitlements are calculated based on the hours they work.

Casual

Casual employees don’t have a fixed pattern of hours and are paid an hourly rate plus a 25% casual loading for ordinary hours worked. 

They must be paid for 3 hours of work each time they’re called in. For cleaners in private medical practices, it’s 2 hours.

Health Professionals and Support Services Award classifications

The Award broadly groups roles into Support Services employees (Levels 1–8) and Health Professional employees (Levels 1–4), with pay points for some levels (discussed later in this guide).

Support Services employees

Support Services covers support and operational roles. Here are Levels 1 and 2 (out of 8) as examples:

Health Professional employees 

The Health Professionals classification covers qualified health professional roles. Here are Levels 1 and 2 (out of 4) as examples:

For the full list of classification levels and definitions, check the Award.

Health Services Award Pay Rates and Entitlements Overview 

Under the Health and Support Services Award, the minimum pay rates and conditions set the baseline for what you must pay covered employees and the key entitlements they get, including ordinary hours, overtime, weekend and public holiday penalty rates, allowances, and leave.

Minimum base rates

Under the Award, the minimum base rate is the lowest rate you must pay an employee for ordinary hours, based on their classification level and pay point (if applicable).

Pay points are steps within the same level. As an employee gains experience and uses their skills, they may move to the next pay point, which increases their minimum rate. Pay points apply to Support Services employees (Levels 8–9) and Health Professional employees (Levels 1–4).

Some levels have a single flat rate (e.g., Support Services employees at Levels 1-7), so there are no pay-point steps within those levels. Instead, the rate changes when the employee moves up to a higher classification level.

Let’s compare how Level 1 and Level 2 work in each stream:

Support Services employees

Health Professional employees

Note: The number of pay points may vary under each level. For the full list of Health Services Award pay rates, download the Health Professionals and Support Services Award Pay Guide.

Before we dive into penalty rates, here’s a quick, practical example of how the Award minimum rates work. We’ll use Support Services Level 1.

• If they work full-time, you pay at least the minimum weekly rate of $978.20.
• If they work part-time, you pay the minimum hourly rate of $25.74 for the hours worked. For example, if they work 20 hours per week, that’s $514.80 per week (20 × $25.74).
• If they’re a casual Support Services Level 1, you pay the same base hourly rate plus 25% casual loading. 25% loading on $25.74 is $6.44, so the casual rate is $32.18 per hour ($25.74 + $6.44). Over 20 hours, they’d earn $643.60 (20 × $32.18).

Penalty rates

Penalty rates are extra pay rates that apply when an employee works at certain times (like weekends or public holidays), paid as a higher percentage of their ordinary hourly rate.

Casual work on Saturday or Sunday is paid at 175% (the casual loading isn’t added on top of this weekend rate). Public holiday work is paid at 250%, the same as full-time and part-time employees.

Note: If the shift is overtime, overtime rates apply instead of (not on top of) penalties.

Let’s understand how the rates work. Let’s say a Support Services employee—Level 2 earns $26.76 per ordinary hour.

• If they work ordinary hours on a Saturday or Sunday, they’re paid 150%, which is $40.14/hour ($26.76 × 1.5).
• For casuals, weekend rates already include the 25% casual loading, so Saturday/Sunday is 175%, which is $46.83/hour ($26.76 × 1.75).

For other penalty rates (including shiftwork penalties and how they interact with weekends/public holidays), check the Award.

Overtime rules and rates

Overtime under the Health and Support Services Award is the higher rate you pay when an employee works beyond their ordinary hours (e.g., over the daily or weekly ordinary hours limits).

Here’s a simple example to clarify. Say you have a Health Professional Level 1, Pay point 1 employee whose minimum base rate is $29.49 per hour.

If they’re a full-time or part-time employee and work 2 hours of overtime on a Monday, those overtime hours are paid at 150%. That means their overtime rate is $44.24/hour ($29.49 × 1.5). For 2 hours, they’d earn $88.48.

Casual overtime rates include the 25% casual loading, so you don’t add the loading again on top of overtime.

For the full overtime rules (including time off instead of overtime pay and the rest period after overtime between shifts), refer to the Award.

Breaks

Breaks are the short pauses during a shift where an employee can eat or take a quick rest, so they can work safely and sustainably.

Allowances

Allowances are extra payments (or reimbursements) that help cover special work conditions or work-related costs on top of an employee’s base rate.

The Award lists 2 types of allowances: wage-related and expense-related. A few examples of both are listed below:

Wage-related allowances

Expense-related allowances

For the complete list of allowances, it’s best to check the Award.

Leave entitlements

Most leave entitlements come from the NES, which applies regardless of the award that covers the employee. The Health Professionals and Support Services Award then adds extra rules for certain leave arrangements.

Annual leave

Let’s look at the key information for annual leave under the Health Professionals and Support Services Award:

• Who gets annual leave: Full-time employees get 4 weeks paid annual leave each year. Part-time employees get the same entitlement based on hours worked. Casual employees don’t get paid annual leave (they’re paid casual loading instead).
• Annual leave loading: Annual leave is paid with 17.5% leave loading (on top of ordinary pay) for non-shift workers.
• Annual leave in advance: Annual leave can be taken before it accrues if there’s a written agreement that sets out the amount of leave and the start date (it must be signed).
• Cashing out annual leave: It can only be cashed out by written agreement each time. The employee must keep at least 4 weeks of accrued annual leave and can cash out up to 2 weeks of accrued leave in any 12-month period.
• Excessive leave accruals: The Award has extra rules for managing large leave balances. “Excessive” annual leave is more than 8 weeks (for non-shift workers).

For full details (including extra rules for shiftworkers, shutdown directions in some practices, and the excessive leave process), refer to the Award.

Other NES leave

Employees covered by the Health Professionals and Support Services Award also get leave under the NES, including:

• Personal/carer’s leave and compassionate leave.
• Parental leave and related entitlements.
• Community service leave (e.g., jury duty or eligible emergency management activities).
• Family and domestic violence leave (the Award also notes confidentiality expectations around handling related information).

How To Determine Health Professionals and Support Services Award Coverage

Getting award coverage right is the foundation of paying people correctly. If you match the role to the wrong award, it can flow into everything else, such as rates, penalties, allowances, and leave.

Health Services Award [MA000027]: A practical, real-world example 

To see how the rules work in real life, here’s a simple clinic scenario:

A 30-year-old casual Health Professional employee:

• Works as an entry-level physiotherapist in a private clinic.
• Is rostered on Saturday, 8:00 am to 6:00 pm (10 hours), then stays back 2 extra hours (to 8:00 pm).

How the Award applies:

• Classification and base rate: Health Professional Level 1, Pay point 2 is $30.64/hour.
• Saturday rate: Casual weekend work (ordinary hours) is paid at 175% (the 25% casual loading is already included).
• Overtime: For casuals, overtime applies after 10 hours in a shift. So the extra 2 hours are overtime and are paid at 187.5% for the first 2 hours (inclusive of casual loading).
• Meal allowance: Because the employee works more than 1 hour past their usual finish time and is working overtime, a $16.62 meal allowance may apply (unless a meal is provided).

Pay summary:

Common scenarios and compliance tips

Below are a few common situations in health practices, with quick checks to help employers stay compliant under this Award.

1. A clinic hires a “practice manager” who mainly does reception and admin

Key checks:

• Coverage under the Health Professionals and Support Services Award likely applies if the business is in the health industry and the role fits a classification.
• Classify the role based on duties actually performed (support services vs. health professional).
• Apply the correct base rate (and pay point where relevant).

2. A pathology practice uses casual staff for short weekend shifts

Key checks:

• Confirm the employment type (casual vs. part-time/full-time) and apply the correct casual loading.
• Check minimum engagement for casuals (usually 3 hours per engagement).
• Apply weekend and public holiday rates correctly (and remember casual weekend rates already include the loading).

3. A clinic regularly asks employees to stay back after their rostered finish time

Key checks:

• Apply overtime rules when work goes beyond ordinary hours and pay the correct overtime rate.
• Check whether a meal allowance applies when working more than 1 hour past the usual finish time.
• Ensure meal and tea breaks are correctly scheduled on longer shifts.

Common employer mistakes to avoid

Here are a few easy-to-miss things to watch out for under the Award:

• Misclassifying employees (using job titles instead of matching duties and skills to the Award classification, including the correct pay point where it applies). 
• Missing casual rules, like paying the wrong weekend/public holiday rates or forgetting the casual minimum engagement. 
• Treating extra hours as ordinary time (instead of checking if the shift has crossed into overtime).
• Not paying required allowances (e.g., on-call, meal allowance for overtime, or travel/vehicle use when authorised).
• Mixing up penalties and overtime (or using the wrong rate when staff work beyond ordinary hours).

Glossary

Accrued leave

When an employee has built up leave over time and can take it later (e.g., annual leave).

Day worker

An employee who works ordinary day hours (not shiftwork) under the Award’s rules. For example, an employee rostered 9:00 am to 5:00 pm on Tuesday is working as a day worker.

Loading

An extra percentage paid on top of the base rate (e.g., 25% casual loading instead of paid leave).

Ordinary hours

The standard hours an employee is rostered to work at their base rate (before overtime applies).

Rostering

Planning and setting an employee’s shifts, including start and finish times and days of work (within the Award’s ordinary hours rules).

Shiftworker

An employee whose ordinary hours are regularly rostered outside the day worker span, so they work shifts (e.g., evening or overnight). 

Resources and Links

For official details and templates, see:

• Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020 [MA000027]: The full Award text.
• Fair Work Information Statement (FWIS): A short summary of NES rights and employer obligations.
• Fair Work Record-Keeping Guidance: What to keep for pay records and payslips.
• Annual Leave Cash-Out Agreement: A template for cashing out annual leave.
• Annual Leave In Advance Agreement: A template for taking annual leave before it accrues.

FAQs

What is the minimum shift under this Award?

Casuals must be paid for at least 3 hours per engagement each time they’re called in (but cleaners in private medical practices can be 2 hours).

What is Level 3 in the Health Professionals and Support Services Award?

In the Support Services stream, Level 3 is a support role level above entry-level roles (with more skills and responsibilities). In the Health Professional stream, Level 3 is a senior clinician level (with more complex work and greater professional responsibility). For the exact wording and where a specific job fits, see Schedule A.

What is the HS1 salary?

If by “HS1” you mean Support Services Level 1 under the Health Professionals and Support Services Award (MA000027), the current adult minimum pay rate is $978.20 per week or $25.74 per hour (based on the Fair Work Pay Guide for MA000027, updated 25 June 2025).

Disclaimer

The information provided here is a summary only and does not constitute legal advice. While we have made every effort to ensure the information provided is up to date and reliable, we cannot guarantee its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your specific situation. Laws change frequently, and outcomes may vary depending on your business circumstances. We recommend consulting a qualified employment lawyer before making decisions related to workforce management. Please note that we cannot be held liable for any actions taken or not taken based on the information presented on this website.

The post Health Professionals and Support Services Award: Pay Rates, Classifications, and Obligations appeared first on Connecteam.

If your business operates in warehousing, storage services, cold storage, or wholesale, and employs people in roles that match the Award’s classifications, it’s likely covered by the Storage Services and Wholesale Award 2020 [MA000084].

Modern award minimum wages (including the Storage Services and Wholesale Award) increased by 3.5% from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2025, so it’s worth rechecking classifications, allowances, and any overtime, weekend, and public holiday rates used in payroll. 

This guide explains who the Award covers, how to match a role to the right storeworker grade or wholesale employee level, and the key pay and hours rules to apply so employees are paid correctly and underpayments are less likely.

Storage and Wholesale Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers

Short on time? This section covers the essentials.

The Storage Services and Wholesale Award [MA000084] sets minimum employment standards and pay rates for many workers in warehousing, storage services, cold storage, and wholesale operations.

To stay compliant, managers must consider:

• Award coverage: Whether the employee is covered by this Award (rather than, for example, the Road Transport and Distribution Award or the Manufacturing Award, which can overlap depending on the main duties).
• Employee type: Whether the employee is full-time, part-time, or casual.
• Employee classification: Whether the employee fits a Storeworker grade (Grades 1–4) or Wholesale employee level (Levels 1–4), based on what the role entails day to day.
• Hours and timing of work: Whether work happens on Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays, or as overtime, because higher rates can apply.

One easy “gotcha” is that Grade 1 and Level 1 have pay steps that increase after 3 months and again after 12 months, provided the employee remains in that classification.

Most compliance issues stem from incorrect classifications, insufficient minimum engagement, and miscalculation of weekend and public holiday rates for casuals.

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

Award Basics

The Storage Services and Wholesale Award 2020 sets the minimum pay rates and key working conditions for many employees working in Australia’s storage services and wholesale industry. It typically covers roles in warehousing and storage, as well as wholesale establishments, involving receiving, storing, packing, dispatching, and delivering goods.

The Award helps ensure staff are paid fairly and receive the correct core entitlements. That includes minimum base rates, penalty rates (including weekends and public holidays), shift penalties, overtime, and allowances, as set out in the Award.

The Award operates alongside the National Employment Standards (NES) (the minimum standards that apply to most Australian employees). Under the Award, the NES and the Award together contain the minimum conditions of employment for covered employees.

Who’s covered under the Storage Services and Wholesale Award?

You’re generally covered by the Award if your business operates in the storage services and wholesale industry, and your employees fit within the Award’s classifications.

Businesses covered

Employers involved in work such as:

• Receiving, handling, storing, freezing, or refrigerating goods
• Bottling or packing goods
• Preparing goods for sale
• Sorting, loading, dispatching, or delivering goods
• Selling goods by wholesale (business-to-business)

This also includes work that is connected to, incidental to, or ancillary to these activities.

Employees covered

You’re commonly covered if you do storage or wholesale work. Roles include:

• Storeworkers and warehouse employees
• Steel distributing employees
• Forklift operators and ride-on equipment operators
• Wholesale employees

This Award can also apply to labour hire businesses and their employees when they’re placed with a business in this industry.

Who isn’t covered under the Storage Services and Wholesale Award?

The Award doesn’t apply if the employer and employee are covered by:

• The Road Transport and Distribution Award 2020.
• Another modern award with classifications that cover the storage services and wholesale work being performed (e.g., the Manufacturing and Associated Industries and Occupations Award 2020).

Where a business is covered by more than one award, the employee is covered by the most appropriate award classification for their work and work environment.

Coverage self-check: Does the Storage and Wholesale Award apply?

Consider whether the following statements apply to your business and the role you’re checking:

• I operate a business in the storage and wholesale industries, including warehousing and storage, receiving and dispatch, packing, cold storage, and wholesale sales (including work that is part of or supports these activities).
• The employee performs work covered by this Award’s classifications (e.g., a store worker or warehouse employee, steel distribution worker, wholesale employee, forklift operator, or ride-on equipment operator).
• The employee is not clearly covered by a different modern award that better matches their main duties (e.g., the Clerks Award, if those classifications are the better fit).
• There’s no enterprise agreement or enterprise award covering the employee (if there is, it usually sets pay and conditions, subject to its interaction with awards and the NES).

If these statements apply, the employee is likely covered by the Storage Services and Wholesale Award.

Still unsure? Check the coverage section in the Award.

Determining Storage Services and Wholesale Award [MA000084] Requirements

Under the Storage and Wholesale Award, employees are usually grouped in 2 main ways:

1. By employment type (full-time, part-time, or casual), which affects things like rostering and minimum engagement.
2. By classification. This is based on what the employee does day-to-day, as well as the skills, training, and responsibilities the role requires. The Award uses 2 main classification groups:
   • Storeworker grades (Grades 1–4). 
   • Wholesale employee levels (Levels 1–4).

Employees are then matched to the most appropriate grade/level based on their duties and work environment.

Employment types

The Award uses 3 main employment types: full-time, part-time, and casual.

Full-time

A full-time employee works an average of 38 ordinary hours per week, averaged over a maximum of 4 weeks. Ordinary hours can be rostered over 4 or 5 days, in shifts of up to 8 hours per day (excluding meal breaks), and up to 10 hours per day by agreement.

For day workers, ordinary hours are usually 7.00 am to 5.30 pm, Monday to Friday (by agreement, the spread may be up to 1 hour earlier or later, and ordinary days may include Saturday and/or Sunday).

Full-time workers are ongoing staff and generally receive the standard entitlements applicable to permanent employees (such as paid annual leave).

Part-time

A part-time employee works less than 38 ordinary hours per week, has reasonably predictable hours, and receives pay and conditions based on the hours they work compared with a full-time employee doing the same kind of work.

They must be engaged for at least 3 consecutive hours per shift.

Casual

Casual employees are paid an hourly rate plus a 25% casual loading for ordinary hours worked. Each time a casual employee starts work, they must be paid for at least 4 hours, even if they work less.

Storage Services and Wholesale Award classifications

Below are some examples of the grades and levels under this award:

Storeworker grades

For the full list of Grades (1–4) and role specifics, such as for steel distribution employees, refer to the Award for more details. 

Wholesale employee levels

For details of Levels 3 and 4, and for the full list of classifications, refer to Schedule A in the Award.

Storage Services and Wholesale Award Pay Guide and Entitlements Overview

Under the Storage Services Award, pay rates and conditions set the minimum you must pay, plus the main rules for ordinary hours, overtime, weekend and public holiday penalties, shift penalties, allowances, and leave.

Minimum base rates

Below are some examples of minimum pay rates (adult full-time and part-time) and their corresponding Grades and Levels from the pay guide:

Storeworkers

Wholesale employees

If an employee is a Grade 1 storeworker or Level 1 wholesale employee, their minimum rate increases after 3 months and again after 12 months (as long as they’re still classified as Grade 1 or Level 1). 

To put the minimum base rate into practice, let’s take a Wholesale employee (Level 2).

If they worked full-time, they’d earn the current minimum weekly rate of $1,014.60. If they worked 20 hours per week part-time, you’d pay them $26.70 per hour, totaling $534 per week (20 × $26.70).

If they were engaged as a casual employee, they’d earn the same base rate of $26.70 per hour plus a 25% casual loading ($6.68 per hour), bringing their casual rate to $33.38 per hour. So over 20 hours, they’d earn $667.60 per week (20 × $33.38).

For the full list of grades, levels, and other rates, refer to the Storage Services and Wholesale Award Pay Guide. And find the latest pay rates using the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Pay and Conditions Tool (PACT) or the Fair Work Commission’s Modern Awards Pay Database.

Penalty rates

Penalty rates are higher pay rates that apply when an employee works on certain days (like weekends or public holidays).

Let’s say a Storeworker Grade 1 is paid $25.85 per ordinary hour.

• If they work ordinary hours on Saturday, they’re paid 150%, so it’s $38.78/hour.
• If they work on Sunday, they’re paid 200%, so it’s $51.70/hour.

For casuals, you don’t add the 25% loading on top of weekend penalties. You just pay the casual weekend rate, because those rates already include the loading.

For shift penalties (early morning, afternoon, and night shift rates), refer to the Award.

Overtime rules and rates

Overtime is paid when an employee works outside the Award’s ordinary hours. For part-time employees, overtime starts when they work more than the hours agreed in writing.

Note: For all employees, overtime worked on a Sunday is paid at double time (200%). If the Sunday hours are overtime, you pay 200% overtime (not the Sunday penalty for ordinary hours).

Quick extra rules for payroll

• Overtime is calculated on a day-by-day basis (i.e., “each day’s work will stand alone”).
• The Award also defines the time periods used for overtime calculations: a “day” runs from the employee’s normal start time to their normal start time the next day, “Saturday” runs from midnight Friday to midnight Saturday, and “Sunday” runs from midnight Saturday to midnight Sunday.

Say someone’s normal start time is 7:00 am:

• Their “day” runs from 7:00 am to 7:00 am the next day. So if they work past midnight, those hours are still counted as part of the same “day” for overtime purposes.
• If a shift runs from 11:00 pm Friday to 3:00 am Saturday, the hours after midnight fall into Saturday (because Saturday starts at midnight).

Now let’s understand how the overtime rates work. 

Let’s say a Storeworker Grade 2 earns $26.70 per ordinary hour. If they work 2 hours of overtime on a weekday, you pay 150% of the rate, which is $40.05/hour ($26.70 × 1.5). After the first 2 overtime hours on that day, any further overtime (Monday to Saturday) is paid at 200%, which is $53.40/hour ($26.70 × 2).

For casuals, overtime is paid at the casual overtime rate (which already includes the 25% casual loading), so you don’t add the loading again on top.

For more overtime rules (including the break after overtime and taking time off instead of overtime pay), it’s worth checking the Award directly.

Breaks and allowances

Breaks

The Wholesale Storage Award sets out 2 break types: a meal break (to prevent employees from working too long without a meal) and paid rest breaks (short breaks during the shift).

Allowances

Under MA000084, allowances fall into 2 types: wage-related allowances (extra pay for certain responsibilities or working conditions) and expense-related allowances (reimbursements for certain work-related costs).

Below are a few examples of both:

For the complete list of allowances, it’s best to check the Award.

Leave entitlements

Most leave comes from the NES, which applies no matter which award an employee is under. The Storage Services and Wholesale Award then adds extra rules (mainly around annual leave payments and how annual leave can be managed).

Annual leave

Let’s look at the key information for annual leave:

• Who gets annual leave: Full-time employees get 4 weeks paid annual leave each year. Part-time employees get the same entitlement based on hours worked. Casual employees don’t get paid annual leave (they’re paid casual loading instead).
• Annual leave loading: On top of annual leave pay, the employer must pay the greater of:
  • 17.5% loading, or what the employee would have earned in weekend penalty rates if they weren’t on leave.
• Paid on the usual pay cycle: If an employee is normally paid by Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), they can be paid as usual while on annual leave.
• Annual leave in advance: Annual leave may be taken early with a written agreement specifying the amount of leave and the start date.
• Cashing out annual leave: Only by written agreement, and the employee must keep at least 4 weeks accrued. A maximum of 2 weeks can be cashed out in a 12-month period.
• Excessive leave accruals: The Award has extra rules for managing large annual leave balances. For non-shift workers, “excessive” means more than 8 weeks of accrued paid annual leave.

For full details, refer to the Award (including shutdowns and any shiftworker-specific rules).

Other NES leave

The Award points back to the NES for other common leave entitlements, including:

• Personal or carer’s leave and compassionate leave.
• Parental leave and related entitlements.
• Community service leave.
• Family and domestic violence leave.

How To Determine Storage and Wholesale Award Coverage

Getting coverage right matters because it tells you which minimum pay rates and conditions you legally must follow, and helps you avoid underpaying staff and incurring back pay later.

Storage and Wholesale Award [MA000084]: A practical, real-world example 

To see how the rules stack up in real life, here’s a simple warehouse scenario:

A 22-year-old full-time warehouse employee:

• Does receiving, picking, packing, and dispatching.
• Operates a forklift as part of the job.
• Works Saturday 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, then stays back 2 extra hours (to 6:00 pm).

How the Award applies:

• Coverage: Covered under the Storage Services and Wholesale Award (because the business is doing warehouse and storage work).
• Classification and base rate: Forklift duties align with Storeworker Grade 2, with a minimum rate of $26.70 per hour.
• Saturday rate: Ordinary time worked on Saturday is paid at 150%.
• Overtime: The extra 2 hours are overtime, paid at 150% for the first 2 hours.
• Meal allowance: Because the employee works more than 1 hour after their usual finish time, a $21.44 meal allowance may apply (unless the employee can reasonably return home for a meal).

Pay summary:

Common scenarios and compliance tips

1. Warehouse hires a “storeworker” who regularly drives a forklift

Key checks:

• Coverage under the Storage Services and Wholesale Award likely applies if the business provides warehousing, storage, dispatch, or wholesale services.
• Classify based on actual duties (e.g., forklift and licensed materials handling usually point to Storeworker Grade 2, not Grade 1).
• Pay the correct minimum rate for each grade and level.
• If the employee works weekends, apply the correct weekend penalty rates.

2. Business runs weekend dispatch with a mix of casuals and part-timers

Key checks:

• Confirm the correct employment type.
• Ensure casuals receive casual loading during ordinary weekday hours and apply the correct casual weekend and public holiday rates.
• Check minimum engagement rules.
• If part-time employees work above their agreed hours, overtime applies.

3. Business runs a cold room or freezer area and rotates staff through it

Key checks:

• Confirm whether the employee is actually required to work in cold temperatures and record when it happens.
• Apply the appropriate cold-temperature allowance rate based on the room’s temperature.
• Apply the usual base rate and any weekend or overtime rules separately if they’re triggered, then add the cold allowance on top.

Common employer mistakes to avoid

Even well-intentioned businesses can make errors. The most frequent include:

• Misclassifying employees (e.g., paying a forklift driver at Storeworker Grade 1 instead of Grade 2).
• Forgetting the Grade 1 and Level 1 step-ups after 3 months and 12 months (where the employee is still at that grade or level).
• Paying casual weekend and public holiday shifts as “base rate + 25% loading + penalties” instead of using the all-in casual weekend and public holiday rates in the pay guide.
• Missing the allowances and not keeping accurate records.

Resources and Links

For further reading and official resources, visit:

• Storage Services and Wholesale Award 2020 [MA000084]: The official Award text.
• Fair Work Information Statement (FWIS): A summary of employee rights and employer responsibilities under the NES.
• Fair Work Record-Keeping Requirements: Guidance on pay slips, pay records, and what employers need to keep.
• Annual Leave Cash-Out Agreement: A ready-to-use agreement template.
• Annual Leave in Advance Agreement: A template for agreeing to annual leave in advance.

Disclaimer

The information provided here is a summary only and does not constitute legal advice. While we have made every effort to ensure the information provided is up to date and reliable, we cannot guarantee its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your specific situation. Laws change frequently, and outcomes may vary depending on your business circumstances. We recommend consulting a qualified employment lawyer before making decisions related to workforce management. Please note that we cannot be held liable for any actions taken or not taken based on the information presented on this website.

The post Storage Services and Wholesale Award: Pay Rates, Classifications, and Obligations appeared first on Connecteam.

If you run a business in the timber and wood industry and employ workers for tasks like harvesting, processing, wood product manufacturing, or pulp and paper operations, you’re likely covered by the Timber Industry Award [MA000071].

From 1 January 2025, “introductory” (entry-level) classifications in many awards (including the Timber Industry Award) can only be used for a limited time, with new minimum-pay rules. Additionally, from 1 July 2025, the Annual Wage Review increased all minimum award rates and allowances by 3.5%.

In this guide, we’ll break down who the Award covers, how to classify roles, and the key pay and conditions you need to apply.

Timber Industry Award: A Quick Summary for Busy Managers

Short on time? This covers the essentials.

The Timber Industry Award [MA000071] sets minimum pay rates and key conditions for many employees working in the timber and wood industry, including harvesting, processing/manufacturing, and related work.

To stay compliant, managers usually need to check:

• Award coverage: Make sure the role is covered by the Timber Award (and not another award like Silviculture, Graphic Arts and Printing, or the Road Transport awards).
• Employee type: Whether the employee is full-time, part-time, or casual.
• Classification: Which stream (General Timber, Wood & Timber Furniture, or Pulp & Paper) and level applies.
• Hours worked: Whether they work ordinary hours, weekends/public holidays, or overtime, because rates can change.

Don’t get caught out by the Award’s definition of timber or wood, which can extend to artificial, laminated, or manufactured materials that are worked in a similar way.

Common compliance slip-ups include picking the wrong stream or level, assuming a different award covers the role, or missing weekend/public holiday and overtime rules.

Coming up: Award dates and deadlines you need to know

Award Basics

The Timber Industry Award 2020 sets the minimum pay rates and key working conditions for many employees working across Australia’s timber industry. It typically covers roles in timber harvesting and forest work, sawmilling and processing, wood products manufacturing (including furniture production), and pulp and paper operations.

The Award helps ensure employees are paid correctly and receive the right core entitlements. This includes minimum base rates for ordinary hours, penalty rates (like weekends and public holidays), overtime rates, break rules, allowances, and other employment conditions.

The Award also sits alongside the National Employment Standards (NES), which are the minimum workplace entitlements that apply to most employees in Australia (such as leave and redundancy rules). In practice, employers must comply with both the NES and the Timber Industry Award, but the higher entitlement prevails.

Who’s covered under the Timber Industry Award?

Businesses covered

Your business is generally covered if it involves working with timber or wood, in sectors like:

• Harvesting and forestry management
• Milling and processing
• Manufacturing
• Panel products
• Pulp and paper
• Merchandising and retailing

Employees covered

Employees are commonly covered if they work in timber/wood roles, such as:

• Harvesting: Chainsaw operators, log segregators, measurers, loaders, cutters, machine operators, fallers (plantations).
• Milling/processing: Tradespeople (e.g., sawdoctors, wood machinists, millwrights), material graders, watch persons, boiler operators, trades assistants, machine operators.
• Panel products/manufacturing/merchandising: General hands, assemblers, non-trade painters, machine operators, customer service reps, maintenance workers, trades, and trades assistants.
• Pulp and paper: Machine operators, maintenance workers.

It also covers labour hire businesses and their employees when they’re placed with an organisation in the timber industry.

Who isn’t covered under the Timber Industry Award?

The Award doesn’t cover employers and employees when the work is covered by one of these other awards: 

• Graphic Arts and Printing Award
• Silviculture Award
• Road Transport Award
• Road Transport (Long Distance) Award

Coverage self-check: Does the Timber Industry Award apply?

Consider whether the following statements apply to the business and role you’re checking:

• I operate a business that works with timber and wood in one or more of the following areas: harvesting/forestry management, milling/processing, panel products, manufacturing, merchandising/retailing, and pulp and paper.
• The employee’s day-to-day duties fit within one of the Award’s classification streams/levels (General Timber, Wood & Timber Furniture, or Pulp & Paper).
• The employee is not covered by a different award that clearly applies (e.g., the Silviculture Award).
• The employee is not covered by an enterprise agreement (i.e., set pay and conditions).

If these statements fit, the employee is likely covered by the Timber Industry Award.

Determining Timber Industry Award [MA000071] Requirements

Under the Timber Award, employees are usually grouped in 2 main ways:

1. By employment type (full-time, part-time, or casual), which affects things like rostering and minimum engagement.
2. By classification. This is based on what the employee does day-to-day, as well as the skills, training, and responsibilities the role requires.

The Award uses 3 main classification streams: 

• General Timber Stream.
• Wood and Timber Furniture Stream.
• Pulp and Paper Stream. 

Employees are then classified into Timber Industry Award levels within the relevant stream.

Employment types

The Timber Industry Award uses 3 main employment types: full-time, part-time, and casual (plus piecework in the General Timber Stream).

Full-time

A full-time employee works 38 ordinary hours per week (on average). For day workers, ordinary hours are usually 6.30 am to 6.00 pm, Monday to Friday (these hours can be averaged over a roster cycle).

Full-time workers are ongoing staff and usually get the standard entitlements that apply to permanent employees (like paid annual leave and paid personal and carer’s leave), alongside public holiday rights.

Part-time

A part-time employee works less than an average of 38 ordinary hours per week and must have a regular pattern of hours. Part-time employees generally get the same core conditions as full-time employees, but key entitlements like annual leave and personal/carer’s leave are paid based on the hours they work. 

They must be rostered for a minimum of 3 consecutive hours per shift.

Casual

Casual employees are engaged as needed and paid the ordinary hourly rate plus a 25% casual loading, so 125%. They must be paid a minimum of 4 hours per day if engaged to work. 

Piecework

Piece rates can be agreed in writing, but must be set so that an employee of average capacity can earn at least 25% above the relevant weekly base rate for the class of work.

Timber Industry Award classifications, streams, and levels

Under the Award, employees are organised into different streams, each with its own levels, and each stream is linked to a specific schedule as follows:

• Schedule A (General Timber Stream)—Levels 1–7
• Schedule B (Wood and Timber Furniture Stream)—Levels 1–7
• Schedule C (Pulp and Paper Stream)—Levels 1–9

Let’s look at Levels 1 and 2 in each of the 3 streams.

As a quick note, you’ll see “relativity” displayed as a percentage in the classification descriptions. This percentage shows how each level’s pay compares to the benchmark level (100%). Levels above the benchmark can exceed 100% (e.g., Level 7 at 115% is 15% higher than Level 5).

General Timber Stream

Wood and Timber Furniture Stream

Pulp and Paper Stream

Note: Level 1 is intended as a short induction or training level under the General Timber Stream and the Wood and Timber Furniture Stream, and is generally limited to 3 months.

Timber Award Pay Guide and Entitlements Overview

Under the Timber Industry Award 2025, the pay rates and entitlements set the minimum standards for what you must pay covered employees, as well as the key rules for hours, overtime, penalty rates, allowances, and leave.

Minimum base rates

Below are the Timber Industry Award minimum pay rates for full-time and part-time adult employees (we’ve used Level 2 and Level 5 in each stream as examples).

General Timber Stream

Wood and Timber Furniture Stream

Pulp and Paper Stream 

To put the minimum base rate into practice, let’s take a Wood and Timber Furniture Stream employee (Level 2).

If they worked full-time, they’d earn the current minimum weekly rate of $948/week.

If they worked 20 hours per week part-time, you’d pay them $24.95/hour, which would total $499/week (20 × $24.95).

And if they were engaged as a casual Level 2 employee, they’d earn the same base rate of $24.95/hour, plus a 25% casual loading of $6.24/hour, which brings their casual rate to $31.19/hour. So over 20 hours, they’d earn $623.80 (20 × $31.19).

For more levels and other Timber Industry Award pay rates, refer to the Award and the Timber Industry Award Pay Guide.

Penalty rates

Penalty rates are higher rates that apply when day workers work ordinary hours on certain days (like weekends and public holidays).

Day worker penalty rates (full-time and part-time):

Note: For weekly day workers, weekend/public holiday work has a minimum payment of 3 hours’ pay.

For instance, let’s say General Timber Stream Level 2 full-time and part-time employees earn $24.95 per ordinary hour.

If they work ordinary hours on Saturday, they’re paid 150%, which is $37.43/hour (minimum payment: 3 hours’ pay).

If they work ordinary hours on Sunday, they’re paid 200%, which is $49.90/hour (minimum payment: 3 hours’ pay).

For casuals, penalty rates already include the 25% loading (so you pay the casual penalty rate, not “casual loading + penalty” separately).

For more information (including shiftworker penalty rates), refer to the Award.

Overtime rules and rates

Overtime is any time an employee works outside their usual hours or longer than their ordinary hours for the day. For part-time employees, overtime begins when they work more hours than their agreed daily hours.

Overtime rates for day workers (full-time and part-time) are as follows:

Note: For Sundays, the Award treats most Sunday work as a penalty rate, not “overtime” in the usual sense—unless the employee is a shiftworker or the work is outside ordinary arrangements.

Quick extra rules for payroll

• Overtime is worked out day by day.
• The hourly rate for overtime is based on the weekly rate divided by 38 (even if an employee works more than 38 hours).

Again, let’s say a General Timber Stream—Level 2 full-time or part-time employee earns $24.95 per ordinary hour.

If they work 2 hours of overtime Monday–Saturday, you must pay 150% for those first 2 hours, which is $37.43/hour.

And after the first 2 hours on that day, any further overtime (Monday–Saturday) is paid at 200%, which is $49.90/hour. 

For casuals, overtime is calculated on their casual hourly rate (which already includes the 25% casual loading), so you don’t add casual loading again on top of overtime.

Refer to the Award for more overtime rules, including shiftworker overtime, and when time off instead of overtime/penalty payments may be agreed.

Timber Industry Award redundancy pay

Redundancy pay is mainly set by the NES.

Key rules

• Moved to lower-paid duties: The employer must give notice of the change or pay a make-up amount so the employee is not worse off during the notice period.
• Time off to look for work: During the notice period, the employee can take up to 1 paid day off per week to attend interviews or job hunt.
• Leaving early after notice: The employee keeps their redundancy entitlements but isn’t paid for the unworked part of the notice period.
• Small business employers: The Award provides redundancy pay for some small business employees, except in the pulp and paper sector or where the NES excludes redundancy pay.

Here’s a quick reference table indicating how many weeks of pay a worker is entitled to based on the employee’s length of service:

For more information, check the Award directly.

Breaks

Break rules help ensure employees get proper rest during shifts. The Award sets out what you must pay if a break is missed or delayed.

Here are some common rules from the Award:

Allowances

An allowance is an extra payment on top of base pay that may apply in certain situations, such as when an employee has extra duties, works in specific conditions, or needs to cover work-related expenses.

Under the Award, allowances fall into 2 buckets: wage-related allowances (extra pay for certain duties/conditions) and expense-related allowances (to cover out-of-pocket costs). Let’s look at some examples:

Wage-related allowances

Note: Under this Award, the forest work allowance and low loader allowance are considered all-purpose allowances. This means they’re treated as part of an employee’s pay and are included when calculating overtime, penalty rates, and leave.

Expense-related allowances

For the full list of allowances, check the Award directly.

Leave entitlements

Most leave comes from the NES, which applies no matter which award an employee is under. The Timber Award then adds extra rules for some leave types. 

Annual leave

Let’s look at the key information for annual leave:

• Who gets annual leave: Full-time employees get 4 weeks paid annual leave each year. Part-time employees get the same entitlement based on the hours they work. Casual employees don’t get paid annual leave.
• Pay during annual leave: Employees must be paid what they’d have earned for their ordinary hours if they were at work, including all-purpose allowances, loadings, and penalties, plus first aid allowance and any over-award payments (but not overtime, special rates, or expense reimbursements).
• Annual leave loading: 17.5%, or 20% for Pulp and Paper Stream day workers.
• Paid on the usual pay cycle: If an employee is normally paid by Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), they can be paid as usual while on annual leave.
• Annual leave in advance: Annual leave can be taken early if there’s a written agreement specifying the amount of leave and when it starts.
• Cashing out annual leave: Only by written agreement. Employees must keep at least 4 weeks of accrued leave and can cash out up to 2 weeks in any 12 months.
• Annual leave during a shutdown: If employees are required to take annual leave during a temporary shutdown, employers generally need to give 28 days’ written notice (unless a shorter period is agreed with the majority).

For full details (including shiftworker annual leave rules), refer to the Award.

Other NES leave

The NES also provides other types of leave that apply to most employees, including those under this Award. These include:

• Personal/carer’s leave (sick leave): Paid leave for eligible full-time/part-time employees when they’re unwell or need to care for someone. If you’re searching “Timber Industry Award sick leave payout,” note that this Award is one of the few that can allow cashing out sick/carer’s leave in limited circumstances (it’s not a standard “payout” on exit).
• Compassionate leave: For things like a death or life-threatening illness/injury of an immediate family or household member.
• Parental leave: Unpaid parental leave and related entitlements for eligible employees.
• Community service leave: For activities like jury duty or volunteering in emergencies (where eligible).
• Family and domestic violence leave: Paid leave is available under the NES.

How To Determine Timber Industry Award Coverage

Getting award coverage right matters because it affects the employee’s minimum pay rate and core entitlements, and helps you avoid underpayments and back-pay issues later.

Timber Award [MA000071]: A practical, real-world example

To see how it works in real life, here’s a simple paper mill scenario:

A 30-year-old casual Pulp and Paper Stream employee (Level 2):

• Helps run a production line, follows standard operating procedures, and records basic production or quality checks.
• Works 8 ordinary hours on a weekday, then stays back 2 extra hours.

How the Award applies:

• Coverage: Covered under the Timber Industry Award because the business is a pulp and paper operation.
• Classification and base rate: Pulp and Paper Stream—Level 2, minimum $26.30/hour.
• Casual rate: $32.88/hour after adding 25% casual loading.
• Overtime: The extra 2 hours are overtime, paid at 150% for the first 2 hours (calculated on the casual rate, not “loading + overtime” separately).
• Minimum engagement: If engaged for part of a day, a casual is generally paid at least 4 hours.

Pay summary:

Common scenarios and compliance tips

1. Sawmill hires a “machine operator” who mainly stacks or sorts timber and runs basic preset machines

Key checks:

• Classify based on what they do day-to-day (not the job title) to ensure the right stream and level.
• Check break rules. Employees mustn’t work more than 5 ordinary hours without a meal break.
• If the meal break is delayed and they keep working, pay the delayed time at the higher rate that applies.
• If hours go beyond ordinary hours/spread, treat them as overtime and apply the overtime rates.

2. Furniture workshop uses casuals for short “fill-in” shifts

Key checks:

• Confirm the worker is casual and make sure the 25% casual loading is included in their base casual rate.
• Check minimum engagement. Casuals generally need to be paid for at least 4 hours of work per day.
• Apply weekend/public holiday penalties (where relevant) using the Award’s rules; don’t “guess” a flat uplift.

3. Paper mill schedules long overtime, and someone works through breaks

Key checks:

• Meal breaks and “working through breaks” can trigger premium payments (work during a meal break is paid at 200%).
• If overtime runs long enough, check paid crib time triggers and timings.
• Overtime is commonly calculated day by day, and rates can change after the first 2 hours for day workers.

Common employer mistakes to avoid

• Classifying workers by job title instead of actual duties (wrong stream/level).
• Forgetting casual minimum engagement or assuming short shifts are fine.
• Missing break-related premium pay (delayed breaks or working through meal breaks).
• Paying allowances but not separating them on payslips, or missing “all-purpose” treatment where it applies.

Glossary

All-purpose allowance

“All-purpose” refers to how the allowance is applied, not what it’s paid for. It’s treated as part of an employee’s ordinary rate of pay and is added to the base rate to calculate overtime, penalty rates, and leave.

Day workers

Employees who work ordinary hours on “day work” (rather than on shiftwork), usually within the daytime spread of hours set by the Award.

Loading

An extra percentage paid on top of the base rate (e.g., 25% casual loading instead of paid leave).

Ordinary hours

The standard hours an employee is rostered to work at their base rate (before overtime applies).

Over-award payment

Extra pay above the Award minimum (e.g., paying $27/hour when the Award minimum is $24.95/hour to attract or retain staff).

Redundancy 

When a job is no longer needed, the employee’s employment ends for that reason (rather than performance or misconduct). 

Shiftworker

An employee who works on a shift roster (rather than standard day work), such as afternoon, night, or rotating shifts.

Resources and Links

For further reading and official resources, visit:

• Timber Industry Award 2020 [MA000071]: The official Award text.
• Fair Work Information Statement (FWIS): A summary of employee rights and employer responsibilities under the NES.
• Fair Work Record-Keeping Requirements: Guidance on pay slips, pay records, and what employers need to keep.

FAQs

1) Where can I find the official Timber Industry Award document?

You can read the current consolidated Timber Industry Award [MA000071] on the Fair Work Ombudsman Award page (also available via the Fair Work Commission).

2) Who is covered by the Timber Industry Award?

The Award generally covers employers and employees in the timber industry where the job fits one of the Award’s classifications across the 3 streams: General Timber Stream, Wood and Timber Furniture Stream, and Pulp and Paper Stream.

3) What is the minimum pay under the Timber Award?

It depends on the stream and level. In the current pay tables (1 July 2025), adult minimum ordinary hourly rates range from $24.28/hour (Level 1) up to $31.56/hour (Level 9). 

Disclaimer

The information provided here is a summary only and does not constitute legal advice. While we have made every effort to ensure the information provided is up to date and reliable, we cannot guarantee its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your specific situation. Laws change frequently, and outcomes may vary depending on your business circumstances. We recommend consulting a qualified employment lawyer before making decisions related to workforce management. Please note that we cannot be held liable for any actions taken or not taken based on the information presented on this website.

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