Fair Work and Employment Law for Building Businesses

About this course.

Most private-sector building businesses in Australia operate under a single national workplace-relations system created by the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). That Act sets the ground rules for the relationship between employers and employees — minimum entitlements, awards, the making of enterprise agreements, protections against unfair treatment, and how disputes are resolved. Two national bodies sit at the centre of the system and do different jobs: the Fair Work Commission is the independent workplace tribunal that makes and reviews awards and deals with claims such as unfair dismissal, while the Fair Work Ombudsman is the government agency that provides free advice, educates employers and workers, and enforces compliance with workplace laws. Knowing which body does what saves a great deal of confusion.

The national system was designed to replace a patchwork of separate state and federal industrial systems with one consistent framework for most employers and employees across the country. For a building business this matters because it means the core rules about pay, hours, leave and dismissal generally come from the same place regardless of which state or territory the work is done in. There are some exceptions and interactions at the edges — and other laws such as work health and safety and workers compensation remain largely state and territory based, covered later in this course — but for the everyday employment relationship, the Fair Work Act is the starting point. A builder engaging carpenters in one state and labourers in another is, for wages and conditions, generally working within the same national framework.