Chris Porter
The Attorney-General and minister for industrial relations Christian Porter has outlined proposed changes to the Fair Work Act to allow employers some flexibility within the governments forthcoming JobKeeper package.
At a doorstop media briefing at parliament house yesterday Porter says there are three groups of proposed amendments to the Fair Work Act.
The first is that the changes to the Fair Work Act will allow an employer, under what will become known for the next six months as a JobKeeper-enabling stand down, to alter the number of hours worked by an employee.
“That will not change the hourly rate that would be worked by – that would be owed to a worker – under all the relevant EA’s and Awards, but it could alter someone’s hours down,” says Porter.
“You can only make that alteration, if the pandemic has meant that there is no work for that person to do compared to what they would usually do or a limitation in the work that they would do compared to what they would usually do. That alteration of hours cannot be unreasonable,” he says.
The second group of changes will see employers being able to alter someone’s usual duties and location of work.
However Porter says employers would only be able to do that if it was safe; reasonable in all the circumstances; inside the skill and competency of the employee, and reasonably within the scope of the business in question.
“So for instance, it would be unreasonable to get someone to work at a new location that was unreasonably far away from where they live,” he says.
“Those directions to alter someone’s location or duties of work would be reviewable by the Fair Work Commission and they would only be able to be reasonably made if they were necessary to ensure the employee’s continuing employment.
The third and final groupings of changes is that the days a person works.
“If they might usually work a Thursday or Friday, they could agree with their employer to work different days and an agreement could be reached between an employer and an employee to have the employee use their leave – their annual leave – but not so that they had less than two weeks remaining,” says Porter.
“Those two things – the days of work and the annual leave would have to be by agreement. But an employee could not unreasonably refuse to make such an agreement and that would be a determination of the Fair Work Commission.
“So a direction for a partial, temporary stand down which would allow alteration of hours of work, reviewable by the Fair Work Commission, there’d be an ability to have the duties and location of work altered – that would have to be reasonable in all the circumstances – that would have to be reviewable by the Fair Work Commission.
“There would be a structure by which employers and employees could agree days worked and the use of leave,” he says.
Porter says these are three, not inconsequential, changes to the Fair Work Act which are necessary to ensure the $1500 payments can start to flow, but also drive some flexibility into the system that will save tens of thousands of jobs.
He says the flexibilities reflect some of that have already been achieved by changing the restaurant, the hospitality and the clerks Award.
