The overtime provision in the Timber Industry Award 2010 provides that employees are entitled to overtime if they work outside the award’s span of hours (being 6:30am to 6:00pm) or if the employee works in excess of their ordinary daily number of hours. Overtime is paid at the rate of time and a half for the first two hours and double time thereafter.
When calculating overtime, a general principle in most modern awards is that each day’s work will stand alone. This means that if an employee regularly performs overtime everyday each week for two hours, the total weekly overtime will be 10 hours paid at the rate of time and a half (or 150% times the employee’s hourly rate). If the same employee worked 3 hours a day of overtime every day during the week, the employee would be entitled to 10 hours at the rate of time and a half and 5 hours at the rate of double time (or 200% times the employee’s hourly rate).
As indicated above, the award’s span of hours are from 6:30am to 6:00pm and the overtime provision provides that if an employee works outside the award’s span of hours they will be entitled to overtime. For example, if an employee is asked to start work earlier at 6:00am instead of 6:30am, the employee would be entitled to half an hour of overtime at the rate of time and a half.
Whilst this article is focused on the Timber Industry Award 2010, each modern award will determine when overtime applies and the span of hours in each award is different so employers need to check the overtime provision within their employee’s applicable award when calculating overtime because of these variations between the modern awards. For example, some awards, such as the Manufacturing and Associated Industries and Occupations Award 2010, provides that overtime for the first 3 hours is payable at the rate of time and a half and then double time and the span of hours in this award differs from the Timber Industry Award 2010.
This article was written and provided by Janet Gilbert of FTMA Safety Expert’s TTIA.