Illegal pay rates still common for piece rate workers after law change

More horticulture employers in Victoria are now paying minimum wage, but piece rates are still common across NSW without a minimum wage guarantee.

Six months after new rules enforcing minimum award rates in horticulture came into effect, the number of piece rate jobs in Victoria has fallen sharply, but numbers in NSW remain high.

Horticulture employers were required to pay a minimum award rate of $26.73 per hour to casual workers and $21.38 to full-time or part-time workers from April 28 this year, instead of a stand alone piece rate.

A survey of more than 1000 job advertisements conducted by Unions NSW has found 19.5 per cent of employers in Victoria were offering piece rate positions after April 28, down from 50 per cent before the rules changed.

In NSW, there had been little change with 42 per cent of job ads offering piece rates after April 28, compared to 43 per cent before. In Queensland, the numbers fell from 32 per cent to 23 per cent.

Piece rate work remains legal in Australia, but employers must now guarantee a minimum daily wage. The change follows a long-running campaign led by worker unions that argued piece rates on their own robbed workers of overtime entitlements.

The new rules ensure less efficient casual piece rate workers are paid a minimum hourly rate for their classification plus a 25 per cent casual loading.

About 20 per cent of job ads in Victoria offered piece rate pay after the law changed on April 28 requiring employers to pay minimum wage. Picture: Robert Klarich / The Australian

NSW is one of the only states in Australia without labour hire licensing legislation.

Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Australian Capital Territory all have labour hire licensing laws, and Western Australia has plans to introduce its own scheme.

The Unions NSW research analysed ads related to 30 crops, the majority for strawberry, blueberry, apple, raspberry and cherry harvests, with 223 employers from the horticulture sector included in the survey.

Unions NSW secretary Mark Morey said there had been “a shining light of change in the horticultural industry” since April 28, but is wasn’t enough.

“It is down from having three out of every five employers (nationally) underpaying workers down to two out of every five. So while it’s a change, it’s not a substantive change. It’s not changed enough,” he said.

The Albanese government’s Secure Jobs Better Pay Bill, which passed the parliament last Friday, makes it unlawful for employers to advertise jobs below the minimum rate of pay. Picture: Robert Klarich / The Australian

Immigration minister Andrew Giles said the Albanese government’s Secure Jobs Better Pay Bill, which passed the parliament last Friday, would “help deliver higher wages for workers around Australia”.

“It is now unlawful to advertise jobs below the minimum rate of pay, which has been a massive issue as this report documents,” Mr Giles said.

National Farmers Federation chief executive Tony Mahar said the organisation supported criminal penalties for offending employers, but he was sceptical about the accuracy of the Unions NSW findings.

“We’re always sceptical when you have unions tallying numbers from online jobs boards and passing it off as credible research,” he said.

NFF supports some recommendations put forward by Unions NSW, including ending limits on the number of hours international students can work per week. But Mr Mahar said the union’s call to end the farm work requirement for working holiday-makers would be a “disaster” without a viable alternative in place.

This call was echoed by employment agency Madec, which administers the federal government’s harvest trail service matching farm jobs with workers.

Madec’s harvest trail information service manager Gavin Krake said the 88 days’ of farm work to qualify for a visa extension was vital for the horticultural industry’s survival.

“If that incentive wasn’t there we would suggest that backpackers would probably stay close to metropolitan areas and the eastern seaboard and involve themselves in hospitality and tourism jobs,” he said.

Mr Krake said the growth in compliance with the new horticulture award since April was unsurprising.

“Growers are much more aware of their obligations,” he said.