Labor seeks to legislate to protect penalty rates for award workers
www.abc.net.au
Workers employed under the award system could not have penalty or overtime rates bargained away under new government legislation to be introduced today.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/22987236

I’m wondering whether I’ll have to wait a long time after royal accent for the new penalty rates bill [1] to enjoy not having to work 40 hours a week (and finally be able to work a standard 38).

From what I can tell, the bill only requires the Fair Work Commission to make/update awards such that you must be paid overtime, meaning the professional employees award won’t be valid anymore (where they don’t have to unless you earn less than 1.25x of minimum wage).

I’m wondering what your opinion/guess is (not legal advice) on whether we’ll need to wait for the award to be updated, or can just go to our employers and say: hey, I’m working 38 hours unless you want to pay me overtime.

I was part of my union, but since engineers are barely in the union, being part of a Professionals Australia (the union for my industry) was kind of a waste of time, and I tried many times to get in touch with their organiser team to push membership in my company to not avail.

Since then I let it lapse because I thought they were doing a pretty bad job, since you can’t have solidarity by yourself. In any case, that’s why I can’t ask them

[1] Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025:

https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=LEGISLATION;id=legislation%2Fbills%2Fr7335_first-reps%2F0001;query=Id%3A"legislation%2Fbills%2Fr7335_first-reps%2F0000";rec=0

This is not yet law.

Ammends this act: [2] Fair Work Act 2009: https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2009A00028/latest/text

  • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1·
    8 days ago

    I know enough about awards to know that in many cases it’s extraordinarily difficult to determine which award applies to you.

    If you want to know, discard all assumed or present knowledge and start with the fair work ombudsman.

    I’m by no means an expert, but I’ve never heard of the professional employees award.

    I work in finance, we’re “professional employees” but we’re covered by a finance award.

    I’ve also never heard of the 1.25x the minimum wage thing either.

    For each type of role the award will list levels like 1 for introductory to 6 for high levels of responsibility.

    You can make an agreement with your employer regarding your wages but it needs to be better than or equal to the terms provided by the award.