Awards
An award is a legal document that sets out minimum wages and conditions for employees performing specific duties. Your award is likely to cover:
- classification of employees and skill-based career paths
- hours of work, including ordinary hours and overtime
- types of employment
- wage rates, including rates for juniors, casuals, apprentices and trainees
- piecework rates, tallies and bonuses
- sick leave
- annual leave and leave loadings
- long service leave
- bereavement and carer’s leave
- parental and adoption leave
- compensation for public holidays
- allowances
- penalty rates
- redundancy and severance payment
- notice of termination
- dispute resolution procedures
- occupational superannuation
- wages and conditions for outworkers
Employers and employees must meet the minimum conditions of employment specified in their award or agreement.
Apprentices and trainees wages are determined by an order of the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC), however, other conditions of employment will be the same as their co-workers get at their workplace.
Some Queensland employees negotiate a workplace agreement with their employer to take into account their own needs and cover issues not provided by an award.
Some Queensland employees are not covered by either an award or an agreement.
Since the introduction of the previous Federal Government’s workplace relations legislation most Queensland employees will no longer be covered by a state award or agreement of the QIRC.
Queensland employees who:
- have now moved to the Federal jurisdiction, and
- were previously covered under a State award
initially retain similar conditions under a notional agreement preserving their state award (NAPSA) or have their state agreement conditions preserved in the Federal system.
For further information contact the Queensland Workplace Rights Hotline on 1300 737 841 (formerly the Fair Go Queensland Advisory Service Hotline), or
The Federal Government’s Workplace Infoline 1300 363 264
Queensland employees who were previously covered by Federal awards in such areas as:
- service stations
- social and community services
- furniture manufacturing
- clothing manufacturing
- retail butchery
- meat processing
- hotels in south-east Queensland
initially retain their conditions within a preserved Federal award.
Last updated 11 August 2009
Other languages