Changes to the Pastoral Award – March 2020

The Fair Work Commission has recently clarified the way some Award provisions apply, and made minor amendments to the Pastoral Award itself.

What are the changes?

• Employees who work overtime for more than two hours after their usual finish time and were not notified of the requirement to work such overtime before leaving work the day before, will be entitled to:
• a meal break no later than 2 hours after commencing overtime,
• a further meal break every 5 hours after the first meal break, for as long as the overtime continues, and
• for each meal break, a meal allowance of $13.76 or be provided with a suitable meal free of cost by the employer.

 What do I need to do?

• Ensure that you provide the above meal breaks to your employees who are working more than two hours overtime and were not notified of this before leaving work the day before.
• Ensure that you provide your employees with a meal or meal allowance at each meal break when working overtime for more than two hours and were not notified of this before leaving work the day before.
• Apply an updated Pay Rate Schedule which includes the above changes.

How can Employsure help me?

Employsure clients affected by the changes to the Pastoral Award have been notified of these changes by email. Get in contact with Employsure if you have any trouble understanding or implementing these changes.

Not a client? If you need help understanding and implementing these changes, please contact Employsure on 1300 651 415 and we can give you free, initial advice on this topic. If you’d like more help implementing these changes in your business and are interested in ongoing support, Employsure can help you.