National Employment Standards

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The National Employment Standards (NES) is a list of (originally) ten minimum entitlements for employees in Australia who are covered by the Fair Work Act 2009. An award, enterprise agreement, other registered agreement or employment contract cannot provide for conditions that are less than the national minimum wage or the NES and they can not be excluded.[1] The NES have applied to employees since 1 January 2010, having replaced the previous five entitlement standard (called the Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard) under the WorkChoices legislation.[2]

History[]

Under the WorkChoices amendments to the Workplace Relations Act 1996, employees were entitled to a system of entitlements in five key areas, called the Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard (or APFCS):

  • wages (basic rates of pay and casual loadings)
  • maximum ordinary hours of work (38 per week plus reasonable additional hours)
  • annual leave
  • personal leave (comprising personal/carer's leave, unpaid carer's leave and unpaid compassionate leave)
  • parental leave.

Safety net[]

There are ten minimum conditions covered under the National Employment Standards:

  1. Maximum weekly hours: This standard provides that employers must not request or require an employee to work more than 38 hours for full-time employees or the ordinary hours of work for a part-time employee.
  2. Requests for flexible working arrangements: This standard allows for employees to request a change to their working arrangements where such change relates to any of the circumstances listed in the Act, which includes caring for children or family, disability, age, or family violence.[3]
  3. Unpaid parental leave: Parents who complete 12 months service with an employer become entitled to take a period of 12 months of unpaid parental leave without pay from their employer.
  4. Annual leave: Australian employees receive 20 days of paid annual leave per year, which is said to be generous compared to many countries.[4]
  5. Personal leave: 10 days of personal leave per year is provided, with this for use when an employee is unfit for work due to illness or family emergency, and 20 days of paid leave for domestic violence purposes.[5]
  6. Community service leave: This entitlement allows employees to take unpaid community service leave for activities such as voluntary emergency management activities or jury duty.[6]
  7. Long service leave: An employee gets long service leave after a long period of working for the same employer, and this entitlement varies from state to state.[7]
  8. Public holidays: This entitles employees to be absent from work on a day that is a public holiday in their base state of work.[8]
  9. Notice of termination and redundancy pay: This provision ensures that employees are provided with a fair period of termination notice, and redundancy pay depending on years of service.
  10. Fair work information statements: Standardised documents on the rights of employees which must be given to any new employee on commencement.

11 Casual employment pathway to permanent employment

Casual employees[]

Casual employees are entitled to a limited number of NES entitlements relating to:

  • unpaid carer's leave
  • unpaid compassionate leave
  • community service leave
  • Fair Work Information Statement.[9]

In some states and territories long serving casuals are eligible for long service leave. Where there is an expectation of ongoing work for a casual and the casual has been employed regularly and systematically for at least 12 months, they have extra entitlements from the NES. These are:

  • the right to request for flexible working arrangements
  • access to parental leave.[10]

Criticism[]

Not all commentators agreed that the Rudd government had struck the right balance between simplification and appropriate protection. Baird and Williamson,[11] for example, argued that the new minimum standards were detrimental to certain groups, particularly women, because the new awards failed to adequately cover women working in social services, call centres and the health sector.

References[]

  1. ^ "National Employment Standards". www.fairwork.gov.au
  2. ^ Fair Work Act 2009
  3. ^ Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) s 65(1A)
  4. ^ Martin, Nicole (11 July 2019). "Australia: A New Age of Leave Entitlements". Society for Human Resource Management. Retrieved 14 December 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ Neale, Hannah (2021-12-02). "Calls for nation-wide domestic and family violence leave". The Canberra Times. Retrieved 2021-12-31.
  6. ^ "Community Service Leave". Fair Work Commission. Retrieved 14 December 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. ^ Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) s 113
  8. ^ Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) s 114
  9. ^ Fair Work Information Statement.
  10. ^ Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), section 61
  11. ^ Baird, M., Williamson, S., (2009) 'Women, Work and Industrial Relations in 2008', Journal of Industrial Relations, 51(3).

External links[]

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