Important changes to modern awards: what you need to know
From 4 February 2020, 30 modern awards have been updated following the Fair Work Commission’s (FWC) four-yearly review of all modern awards. This includes the Banking, Finance and Insurance Award 2010, the Car Parking Award 2010 and the State Government Agencies Award 2010. If you employ award-covered employees, you must take action to find out if these updates affect you.
The updates are designed to improve readability, with plain language amendments and reordered clauses. Other important changes include the insertion of a clause on casual conversion in certain awards. You’ll also notice that your award’s title now ends with ‘2020’.
To demonstrate what has been updated, the FWC has published ‘tracked changes’ versions of the updated awards. To access these, click here and type ‘tracked’ into the Document Title search field.
Employers should refer directly to the updated modern awards and ensure that all employment documentation that refers to the award is amended. Failure to do so may present unexpected risks.
More awards will be updated on 13 April and 4 May 2020, and new annualised salary clauses in some awards will commence from 1 March 2020. It’s important to stay up to date with the changes, and seek legal advice if you’re unsure of the implications for your business. You can subscribe to award-specific updates here.
Hall & Wilcox would be pleased to assist in assessing how these changes affect you and your employees.