News | 23 June

There is a lot happening in this area – here are some things that you have to pay attention for SOFY (ie Start of Financial Year).

  1. The Fair Work Commission has handed down its decision in the 2020-2021 Annual Wage Review. The result is a 2.5% increase in the National Minimum Wage taking it to $772.60 per week or $20.33 per hour.
  2. For the civil construction industry, all of the relevant awards – building and construction, other trades, road transport (drivers), clerks, professional employees (engineers), surveyors, etc – will have these increases apply from 1 July 2021
  3. The Superannuation Guarantee Charge increases by 0.5% to 10% effective from 1 July 2021 as well.
  4. And also the new Victorian Wage Theft law comes into effect creating a new jurisdiction with significant penalties for employers who knowingly fail to comply with their obligations as employers.   Offences can attract penalties of up to $991,320 for bodies corporate and up to  $198,264 and up to 10 years’ jail for individuals.

And here are 5 things that you need to do:

  1. Review rates of pay to ensure that all employees are being paid at or above award rates.
  2. If you currently have annualised wage or salary arrangements in place with any employees, review those to ensure that they are compliant with minimum requirements and that both minimum award rates and any setoff award provisions are adequately covered by the annualised wage or salary
  3. Make the required adjustment to superannuation guarantee contributions
  4. If you have an enterprise agreement, see how any of these changes affect that and
  5. Review your employment contracts to ensure that they reflect the new minimum rates and superannuation guarantee and that they have picked up on any variations to the Fair Work Act (such as the recent casual employment variations) and modern awards that have occurred in recent times (there have been quite a number of variations to modern awards in the last 12 months as part of the modern award review process).

If you need assistance with any of this, please do not hesitate to contact Liam Maguire at Ridgeline HR on 0421 592 541 or at liam@ridgelinehr.com.au.

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