If you don’t have time to scroll, click here for a chat.

Fair Work Legislation Changes July 2024

HR UPDATE | New Legislation – What impacts me?

You have probably heard that a range of new employment legislation has been passed in parliament, known as the ‘Closing the Loopholes Bill #2’.

Whilst there are over 20 key changes that come into effect at various times between now and 2025, we are here to help you sort through the weeds by identifying which of these changes affect your day-to-day operations and require you to take action – summarised for you below!

We recommend paying particular attention to the Right to Disconnect and Casual employment changes which are likely to affect most businesses.

Effective Date What is the Change? Who does this apply to? Recommended Action
1 st July 2024 Union right of entry without notice A union representative is able to apply to the Fair Work Commission to get an exemption certificate which waives the 24 hours’ notice requirement for entry to a business to investigate suspected underpayments. Previously Union representatives had to provide advance notice of entry. Any workplace with Union representation.
  • Undertake a full wage review to ensure there is no risk of underpayments.
  • Educate leaders to ensure they are aware of the Union’s new rights.
26th August 2024 (non-small business) and 26th August 2025 (small business employers) New Employee Right to Disconnect

Employees will have a new workplace right to protect themselves from being unreasonably contacted outside their ordinary working hours. The Reasonable test will apply when assessing out-ofhours contact. If an employee feels this right has been breached, they have access to lodge a General Protections claim. This right will apply to all employees, whether award-covered or not.

All employers, with varying effective dates.
  • Undertake review of all roles to ensure they are sufficiently remunerated for out-of-hours work.
  • Update clauses in Contracts, Policies, PDs and Job Adverts.
26th August 2024 New Definition of Casual Employee

A revised definition of a Casual Employee will be added to the Fair Work Act, which influences the test that is applied in assessing whether a Casual employee is a ‘true casual’. The test will now look at the total nature of the relationship, whereas previously the test only looked at the terms of the written agreement when the engagement commenced.

All employers who engage casual employees.
  • Undertake a review of your casual workforce to identify who may be considered a permanent employee under the new test.
26th August 2024

Changes to Casual Conversion Process

The Employer will no longer be obligated to proactively offer casual conversion. The onus will be on the employee to request conversion to permanency, and if they don’t exercise that right, they will remain as casual employee. However, the employee is now able to request this after 6 months of working a regular pattern of hours, which was previously 12 months (for small business employers, the right for the employee to request conversion remains at 12 months).

All employers who engage casual employees.
  • Update references to Casual Conversion in Employment Contracts
  • Update internal process for managing casual conversion.
26th August 2024

Frequency of Issuing Employees with the Casual Information Statement

To help in communicating an employee’s entitlement to request conversion to permanency, Employers are now required to provide casual employees with the Fair Work Casual Employment Information Statement at the following milestones:

  • For Small Business: Upon commencement and at 12 months service.
  • For Non-Small Business: Upon commencement, at 6 months service and every 12 months service ongoing.

*Remember, this must be provided in addition to the standard Fair Work Information Statement.

All employers who engage casual employees.
  • Implement new process for administering the Casual Information Statement to casual employees. at the required milestones.
26th August 2024 (or earlier)

New Employee vs Contractor definitions & test

New definitions of Employee and Employer will be added to the Fair Work Act, which influences the test that is applied in assessing whether an independent contractor may actually be an employee. The test will now look at the total nature of the relationship between the parties, whereas previously the test only looked at the terms of the written agreement when the engagement commenced.

Any Employer who engages Independent Contractors
  • Undertake a review of your contractors to identify who may be at risk of being considered an employee under the new test.

NEXT STEPS?

It’s never too early to start working through these changes. If you would like some guidance on where to start to ensure you are prepared to be compliant with these new laws, we encourage you to reach out to our experienced HR Team at Purple Playground HR & Recruitment