Meat Industry Award Guide [MA000059]

This article provides guidelines on the Meat Industry Award package. For more information on this award, please refer to the Meat Industry Award.

What is the Meat Industry Award?

The Meat Industry Award sets minimum employment standards for workers in the Australian meat industry, including wages, hours, leave, and other conditions. It aims to ensure fair treatment and respect for all employees.

Who is covered by the Meat Industry Award?

Coverage

The Meat Award applies to employers and eligible employees in the meat industry.

The meat industry includes:

• manufacture meat
• process meat or
• retail meat (retail outlet is to be a stand alone business, not as part of a supermarket or like business operations).

It also covers:

• handling or processing of all by-products, such as skin, hides and rendering
• distributing, transporting and storage of meat

when it is done by an employer who is manufacturing, processing or retailing meat, or by an employer who is connected to an employer who does.

Examples of employees covered by the Meat Industry Award include:

• butchers
• slaughterers
• boners
• sales persons
• sawyers
• slicers
• skin classers
• smallgoods makers
• trimmers
• labourers and assistants (including storeworkers)
• machine operators.

The Meat Award also covers labour hire businesses and their employees who are placed with an organisation in the meat industry.

The following employers and employees are not covered by the Meat Award:

• businesses that manufacture, slaughter, process or sell poultry, game or game birds (eg. chicken retail shops)
• meat inspectors
• businesses that distribute, transport and store meat but don’t manufacture, process or sell it
• machine maintenance employees.

The Meat Award doesn’t cover employers and employees when they are covered by one of the following awards:

• Nurses Award
• Retail Award
• Food and Beverage Manufacturing Award.

Source: Meat Industry Award [MA000059] clauses 2, 4 and schedule A.

How are the hours of work arranged in the Meat Industry Award ?

Ordinary hours of work

• Full-time employees in the meat industry must not work more than 38 hours per week or 152 hours in a 28-day period.
• Casual employees in the meat industry must not work more than 38 hours per week.
• The maximum number of ordinary hours that can be worked in a single day is 10 hours, excluding unpaid meal breaks.

Breaks

• Employees must not work for more than 5 hours without a minimum 30-minute unpaid meal break, unless mutually agreed upon with the employer.
• If an employee is required to work during a meal break, they must be paid at overtime rates for that period.
• Certain employees involved in mechanised production systems are entitled to a 10-minute paid rest break during their ordinary working hours.
• Shiftworkers have the option of either an unpaid meal break or a 30-minute crib time after working for 5 hours, to be agreed upon between the employer and the majority of employees concerned.

How are wages and allowances calculated in the Meat Industry Award?

Minimum rates

 Adult rates

Junior rates

Minimum rates for apprentices

• The minimum award rates for apprentices who started before January 1, 2014, refer to:

• For apprentices commencing a 4-stage or year apprenticeship on or after January 1, 2014, the minimum award rates are based on the following percentages of the minimum weekly rate of MI 7.

*For more information about minimum rates, please refer to the complete version of Fair Work.

Overtime

• All time worked outside ordinary working hours or outside the rostered shiftwork hours of a shiftworker will be considered overtime and paid at 150% of the employee’s minimum hourly rate for the first 3 hours and 200% thereafter.
• Overtime worked on Sundays in meat processing establishments must be paid at 200% of the employee’s minimum hourly rate, with a minimum payment of 4 hours.

Allowance

How is the leave managed in the Meat Industry Award?

In the Meat Industry Award, leave entitlements for employees are determined by the National Employment Standards (NES) and the classification of the employee.

Annual leave

Under the NES and Meat Industry Award, employees are entitled to annual leave, except for casuals. Provisions exist to prevent employees from being paid less during their annual leave.

• Leave Loading: Employees receive a 17.5% leave loading on top of their usual pay rate when taking annual leave.
• Penalty Rate Comparison: Employers compare the leave loading amount to what employees would have earned if they had worked on a weekend or public holiday with penalty rates.
• Higher Calculation: The higher amount between the leave loading and penalty rate calculation is paid to employees for the specific leave period.
• Shiftworkers: Shiftworkers who are available to work seven days a week and are regularly rostered to work on Sundays and public holidays are entitled to five weeks of paid annual leave.

Public holidays

Public holidays are provided for in the NES.

• Employers and employees can agree to replace a public holiday with another day by mutual agreement.
• Similarly, employers and employees can agree to substitute a part-day public holiday with another part-day by mutual agreement.
• For employees, including casuals, working on:

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