Two systems of industrial relations and employment legislation that could apply to businesses in Western Australia and they each have different conditions. An organisation or a business can only be under one system. The system that applies depends on the kind of organisation.
There have been some recent updates to commonwealth employment legislation which could lead to a lot of change in how business employ and manage their staff.
Some things to note for those under the federal system:
- Because you’re under the Commonwealth legislation, some employee entitlements are different to the state based conditions. For example, casual loading is 25%.
There is a federal general clerical award which covers administration staff. Link here: https://awardviewer.fwo.gov.au/award/show/MA000002#P71_2656
- Family and domestic violence leave – From 1 February 2023 every employee is entitled to 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave. This applies to all business with more than 15 employees. There are some best practice recommendations on what employers can do to manage this. Happy to discuss further or work on a policy with you.
- Flexible working arrangements – It is now a requirement that requests have to be seriously considered and employees advised why they are not agreed.
- Respect at work – There is new legislation that places a greater onus on employers to address sexual harassment in the workplace in the same way that any safety issues are the responsibility of employers. Sexual harassment becomes and WHS issue. It is incumbent on employers to take steps to ensure that their workplace is free of sexual harassment and is safe in keeping with WHS definitions. https://www.hrleader.com.au/law/23560-the-respect-at-work-bill-has-passed-what-does-this-mean-for-hr.
- New IR legislation – new industrial relations legislation has recently been introduced that provides for a number of significant changes for employers and businesses. I’ve summarised these below. There is clarification on these provisions coming through daily, however, it does appear that there will be a lead up time of about nine months before you will have to implement these provisions.
- a crack-down on fixed term contracts, especially rolling fixed term contracts
- new prohibitions on pay secrecy clauses
- changes to multi-employer agreements that will particularly affect those industries that may have difficulty bargaining at a single-enterprise level, such as aged care, disability care, early childhood education and care industries
- new bargaining rules for single interest enterprise agreements, possibly broadening the use multi-employer agreements generally within the Australian economy.