Fair Work Ombudsman begins education blitz in NSW and Queensland to ensure businesses understand their workplace obligations
July 12, 2010
The Fair Work Ombudsman has begun an education blitz in NSW and Queensland to ensure businesses understand their workplace obligations.
Fair Work Ombudsman Executive Director Michael Campbell says the visits are designed to help employers understand the employment standards the introduction of the modern awards system on July 1.
Information packs including fact sheets, templates and advice on how employers can best adjust to the new workplace system will be handed out.
NSW inspectors will randomly doorknock about 50 businesses in Murwillumbah and 60 businesses in Mosman over a two week period to hand out information packs to employers on the national workplace system.
The Ombudsman will visit 60 Queensland businesses in Ayr and Home Hill and 180 Townsville and Ingham employers over a three month period.
Inspectors will doorknock 60 businesses each month in Townsville and Ingham and then spend another four weeks doorknocking 100 Fraser Coast employers.
Another 180 businesses in Cairns, Port Douglas and Mareeba will be visited over three months, with inspectors planning to doorknock 60 companies each month.
“We are very serious about our job of building knowledge and creating fairer workplaces and we are strongly focused on ensuring the community understands its workplace rights and obligations,” Campbell says.
“The best advice I can give to business operators is to get the basics right and everything else should start to fall into place.
“By the basics, I mean knowing what Award applies to your employees, what the correct classifications for your employees are and what pay rates apply.”
The campaign forms part of 10,000 visits the Ombudsman plans to make this year in NSW. It will conduct another 10,000 visits in Queensland, 5000 in South Australia and 1000 in Tasmania.
Trucking operators employing staff under an award were required to move to the new awards system on July 1 that replaced around 120 transport awards with three.
The new awards cover the general transport, long distance and cash in transit sectors.
Those employing staff under the NSW Transport Industry (State) Award will need to apply pay transitions when moving staff to the new award because of the higher pay rates under the NSW Award.
Companies employing workers under enterprise agreements are not affected.
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• NSW operators face ‘complexity’ under new award system