Industrial Relations Omnibus Bill

No doubt over the various forms of media over the last week you have heard about the Industrial Relations Omnibus Bill, resulting from the IR working group formed due to COVID-19, with the plan to assist in creating jobs.

Remember, at this stage this is only a Bill so things may change by the time it is passed and it will take some time to get there.

The Bill focuses on casual employees, award flexibility & simplification, agreement making & greenfield agreements and compliance and enforcement.

The Bill introduces a statutory definition of a casual employee and aims to prevent double-dipping claims by ensuring any casual loading paid can be offset against claims for leave and other entitlements.   The definition being, a person is a casual employee if; employment is offered without any firm advance commitment that the work will continue indefinitely and follow an agreed pattern of work, and the employee accepts the offer on that basis.  Employers must also provide casual employees with a Casual Employee Information Statement, to be prepared by the Fair Work Ombudsman.   It also includes employers having to offer casual employees after 12 months of employment, part-time or full-time roles if the employee has worked a regular pattern on an ongoing basis for the last 6-month period, which already exists in some Awards now.

The Bill will also extend existing JobKeeper flexibilities regarding duties and location of work in some Awards for a further 2 years.  It also introduces part-time flexibility to allow employers and employees to agree on additional hours for employees working a minimum of 16 hours to be paid at ordinary rates rather than overtime for those covered by 12 awards in the retail, accommodation and food services industry.

The Bill aims to increase the number of employees covered by enterprise agreements by making the approval process faster and easier.  This is achieved by allowing more flexibility to how employees can be provided with a fair and reasonable opportunity to consider their vote.  The Fair Work Commission will also have to approve them within 21 days and the better-off-overall test will be clearer.   There are changes to allow the Fair Work Commission to approve longer term greenfield agreements made to avoid issues where the agreement nominally expires during a project.

The Bill also introduces a new criminal offence for dishonest and systematic wage underpayments with jail terms and significant fines for individuals and large businesses and increases the value of civil penalties that can be imposed for non-compliance by 50%.  Fines and penalties will also increase by 50% for sham contracting and increasing the small claims cap from $20,000 to $50,000 to allow more employees to recover their entitlements through the small claims process.

We will keep you up to date with the progress however please get in touch if you have any questions.  You can contact us here.