With Santa not far away, employers need to be aware of the upcoming public holidays and the associated obligations to their farm team.
Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Years Day are all classed as public holidays in Australia (QLD and South Australia have additional public holidays on the evenings of Christmas Eve and/or New Years Eve). Dairy farm employees covered by the Pastoral Award 2020 must be paid penalty rates if they work on any of these days.
Permanent employees (Full Time or Part Time)
If a permanent employee’s usual rostered day of work falls on a public holiday there are two options:
- either the employee has the day off and is paid their base hourly rate for ordinary rostered hours
- or they work and are paid double their base hourly rate for each hour worked
If a public holiday falls on a permanent employee’s regular day off, they receive no additional pay.
Permanent employees on Individual Flexibility Agreement or Annualised Salary
Permanent employees on an Individual Flexibility Agreement or Annualised Salary may already have public holidays factored into their pay. This should be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Casual employees
- Casual employees that do not work on a public holiday are not entitled to any pay
- Casuals that work on a public holiday must be paid penalty rates
- Penalty rates for casual employees are calculated on the ordinary time rate, not the loaded casual rate. ‘Double’ time for casuals is most easily expressed as 225% of their base rate. For example, an employee on a casual rate of $32/hour should be paid $57.60/hour on a public holiday. This is calculated by dividing 32 by 125 (to find 1% of the rate), then multiplying by 225.
More information regarding public holiday entitlements can be found on the People in Dairy website here.
