Andrew Stirling, head of Tanda PaySure, has written to the President of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) about the ambiguities in the new modern award annualised wage clauses. The clauses commenced in 18 awards on 1 March 2020.

Mr Stirling’s correspondence to Justice Iain Ross drew on Tanda’s experiences talking to customers and potential customers about compliance with the new clauses.

Tanda has been demonstrating to its clients how Tanda’s platform can be used, off the shelf, for complying with the new annualised wage clauses.

Mr Stirling asked the FWC to consider amending the annualised wage clauses to:

1. Confirm, one way or the other, the clauses’ relationship with contractual set-off clauses;
2. Either:
   1. make it clear that any and all payments due under the award could be satisfied by the annualised wage; or
   2. specify which award payments cannot be included in the annualised wage;
3. Clarify how employers should calculate the “outer limit” penalty rate and overtime hours;
4. Confirm that payments for work outside the “outer limit” hours can be included in the 12-monthly annualised wage reconciliation; and
5. Clarify whether employees can “acknowledge as correct in writing” their timesheets by silence (e.g. if they do not reply to an email that asks them to notify the employer if they worked outside a set of standard hours).

In his correspondence, Mr Stirling noted that Tanda would also imminently release a wage check report that will allow customers to check annual salaries against modern award obligations.

We will keep subscribers updated with any response from the FWC.