Christmas time wages – so easy!
If you are closing your office you need to know about public holidays and how they effect wages for your team. Different states declare different public holidays, part-time staff need to be paid their normal hours, they do not need to make up the time on another day.
If your workplace remains open, you need to know about public holiday payrates/loadings and minimum shift lengths.
Fairwork says: Public holidays are part of the National Employment Standards (NES). The NES apply to all employees covered by the national workplace relations system, regardless of any award, registered agreement or employment contract.
Employees have the right to be absent from work on a day or part-day that is a public holiday. Employees are protected from adverse action for reasonably refusing to work on a public holiday.
Full-time and part-time employees are entitled to be paid their base pay rate for their ordinary hours if they are absent from work because of a public holiday.
An employee is not entitled to payment if they do not have ordinary hours of work on the public holiday.
For example, a part-time employee is not entitled to payment if their part-time hours do not include the day of the week on which the public holiday falls.
Public holidays during other leave
When an employee takes annual or sick leave they’re still entitled to be paid for public holidays. This payment doesn’t come out of the employee’s leave balance. However, the public holiday has to fall on a day the employee would usually work.
Unpaid leave and public holidays
An employee isn’t paid for any public holiday that falls during a time when the employee is on unpaid leave.
Check out all the details here: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/public-holidays and here https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/public-holidays/not-working-on-public-holidays or ask us to help.
