“Labor’s extraordinary move to repeal this regulation, which protects thousands of small businesses who are the backbone of our economy and our communities, just does not pass the pub test,” Mr McBride said.
“While we support all workers being paid fairly, we know they are already being paid award wages with built-in loadings. It’s just plain wrong to force small employers to fund this enormous amount of backpay, potentially dating back six years, when they have already paid
their workers fairly.”
Last August, in WorkPac v Skene, the Federal Court ruled that casual workers were entitled to annual leave and redundancy payments, despite being paid special leave loadings.
In response to the outcry across Australia, the Federal Government introduced a regulation which allowed an employer to offset any claim for extra entitlements against an identifiable casual loading.
After the court ruling, it was estimated that many in our small business community could be driven out of business through potential total claims of between $5.7bn and $8bn.
Mr McBride said the South Australian Business Chamber “strongly condemned” Labor’s moves.
“Employees who have been paid 25 per cent loadings over the years to compensate for annual and personal leave should not be able to turn around down the track and lodge claims for backpay, when they’ve already felt the benefits of a fair wage system,” he said.
“This penalises small and medium-sized business owners who are already doing it tough while overheads, such as power and water, continue to rise. This is unacceptable.”
For further information or to arrange an interview please contact Verity Edwards on 0412 678 942.
15 February 2019
