The Fast Food Industry Award (MA000003) covers employers in the fast food industry and their employees who fit within the classifications of the award.
But did you know that it does not cover hospitality businesses that sell food and beverages to be enjoyed as a sit down offer?
Examples of businesses not covered by the Fast Food Industry Award include:
- cafes;
- restaurants;
- coffee shops;
- or bars.
While you can review the Fast Food Industry Award on the Fair Work website, the document is often filled with complicated legal jargon, making it challenging to understand whether or not your fast food business is meeting all the compliance requirements.
With a recent focus on payroll compliance from Fair Work Australia and media coverage of businesses guilty of wage theft, it’s more important now than ever that companies understand what’s expected of their obligations when it comes to being compliant with pay rates and employment conditions.
To help guide you in the right direction, we’ve created an easy-to-understand eBook that summarises all the essentials in the Fast Food Industry Award. Our eBook also includes a payroll processing checklist for your fast food business so that you can ensure you cover all your bases and remain compliant in terms of the Fast Food Industry Award.
We’ve also put together this article to cover some of the conditions that are commonly missed in the Fast Food Industry Award that you should know of to ensure you fully understand how to be 100% compliant.
Disclaimer:
Please note that every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided in this guide is accurate. You should note, however, that the information is intended as a guide only, providing an overview of general information available. This guide is not intended to be an exhaustive source of information and should not be seen to constitute legal or tax advice. You should, where necessary, seek a second professional opinion for any legal or tax issues raised in your business affairs.
District Allowance - Broken Hill
The allowance was introduced to compensate for a decision that was made to reduce their five weeks paid annual level to 4.
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This Fast Food Industry Award allowance is paid on an hourly basis rather than as a lump sum, so you must ensure that it is added accordingly to your employee’s wages.
Casual Employees Have the Right to Request Employment Conversion
As the employer, you are allowed to accept, in writing, or refuse the request. However, it’s up to your employees if they want to make a request, and you cannot require your casual employee to make a request.
If you choose to deny the request, the Fast Food Industry Award requires the denial to be on reasonable grounds, such as:
- to fulfil the requirements of the new employment type, there is a significant change to the number of work hours;
- the casual position may not exist in the next 12 months;
- the casual position may have reduced working hours within the next 12 months; or
- there is likely to be significant changes in the casual employee’s work days and times within the next 12 months that doesn’t suit the employee’s availability.
Accident Pay
Accident pay is the difference between what an employee would typically get paid and the amount they get paid from workers compensation.
For casual employees, this is calculated by averaging their hours over the 12 months before the day they started getting workers compensation payments.
Under the Fast Food Industry Award, employees are entitled to accident pay for up to 26 weeks, however:
- accident pay is not paid for the first seven days (including days off) of the 26 weeks;
- if the injury occurs in the first two weeks of employment, the employee only gets accident pay if the incapacity lasts for more than two weeks; and
- If an employee receives a lump sum instead of weekly payments from workers compensation, their employer doesn't have to pay accident pay.
If an employee returns to work on fewer hours or modified duties, their accident pay is reduced by how much they get paid for that work.
Example:
Penelope works 39 hours a week at $27 an hour, equaling $1,053 per week.
Due to an unfortunate accident in the kitchen, Penelope was seriously injured and had to take some time off. As a result, she had to start relying on workers compensation.
She received $510 a week in workers compensation payments, so her employer was required to pay her $543 a week in accident pay.
Penelope was allowed to return to work after three weeks but had to reduce her hours and modify her duties temporarily. As a result, she only worked 26 hours a week for $24 per hour, totalling to $624 per week.
But because she returned to work, her accident pay was reduced by $624. This meant her employer only had to pay her an additional $429 in accident pay per week.
Penalty Rates Don’t Only Apply to Weekends
- Monday to Friday: from 10.00 pm-midnight; and
- Monday to Friday: from midnight-6.00 am
Our Fast Food Industry Award eBook outlines the penalty rates that are to be paid at different times and on different days.
In terms of the Fast Food Industry Award, you are allowed to enter an agreement with your employee, in writing, if they would prefer to take time off for their overtime, instead of getting paid the overtime rates.
Employees are entitled to take time off based on what their overtime payment would have been.
Example:
Luke, a casual employee at a local fast food restaurant, worked 4 hours overtime.
He had agreed with his employer to receive time off as opposed to getting paid for his overtime hours.
According to the overtime rates, he is entitled to receive 200% of his ordinary hourly rate. So, Luke time off calculation will be as follows:
4 hours x 200% overtime rate = 8 hours time off
However, this time off needs to be taken within six months of the worked overtime and at a time that is agreed on by both the employer and employee.
Breaks Need to Be Separated Across Longer Shifts
These breaks need to be taken in such a way that your employee has one break in the first half of their shift and another in the second half.
Key Takeaways
Most of the time, the industry awards are difficult to comprehend because they are filled with many complex clauses written in a way that only lawyers can understand.
Beyond reading the Fast Food Industry Award eBook and this article, given the complexity of the award, we have found that adopting Employment Hero's cloud payroll software to automate your compliance and help with labour cost control is a handy tool.
If you’re still feeling unsure about your compliance with the Fast Food Industry Award, feel free to get in touch with us at Pay Cat to learn more about adopting Employment Hero's cloud payroll software for the Fast Food Industry Award (MA000003) or any other modern award.
Alternatively, if you're interested in making the move to Employment Hero Payroll, book in a free demo with us to find out how you can automate your Modern Award compliance.
