The Fair Work Ombudsman
Road Transport & Distribution Award 2010 Handbook – Introduction
A primary objective of the Fair Work Ombudsman is to educate employees and employers about their respective workplace rights and obligations. Fair Work Ombudsman, Nicholas Wilson explains how his Agency helps businesses to understand and comply with the law.
With the overhaul of the workplace relations system and the national protections, there have been a lot of changes that business needs to be aware of.
The reality is that our 500-odd inspectors (based at 53 metropolitan and regional centres around the country) are very much focused on ensuring we deliver useful and practical educational resources to assist you to understand and comply with your lawful obligations.
Last financial year, Fair Work inspectors finalised 21,070 investigations into complaints from employees – the overwhelming majority with co-operation from employers who voluntarily rectified any breaches without the need for further action. Indeed only some 53 matters were put in the hands of the courts.
Most working days, our Infoline answers around 4,000 calls and we would say about a third are from employers and about 80 per cent of these indicate they have less than 15 employees.
In 2009-10, our Infoline fielded 1.1 million calls, the Fair Work websites recorded more than 3.6 million hits and practical resources we have developed such as fact sheets, self-audit checklists, templates and the like were downloaded more than 1.2 million times.
We have also made some 20,000 visits, mainly to small businesses, in NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania to provide information to employers who have moved from the state to the federal workplace relations system.
Further information www.fairwork.gov.au or call the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94 between 8am and 6pm weekdays. A free interpreter service is available on 13 14 50.
This Award Handbook was prepared by ARTIO, in conjunction with the Fair work Ombudsman, in 2010 when the Modern Award system was introduced. It provides general advice only and the rates and allowances contained therein are well out of date. You should refer to the current rate’s pages, for each award, to ascertain the correct award rates and allowances payable from July 2017. Further, there have been some amendments to the various awards over the last few years and you should always check via the link provided to ensure the latest information on award terms and conditions are accessed