If you’re involved in a not-for-profit organisation or charitable organization, you need to be aware that the Fair Work Act 2009 became fully operational on 1 January 2010. This means that modern awards addressing all workplace issues for some employees, and new compulsory entitlements relating to the following issues now form part of the Federal government’s “safety net”:

• Maximum weekly hours of work;
• Requests for flexible working arrangements;
• Parental leave;
• Annual leave;
• Personal/carer’s leave and compassionate leave;
• Community service leave;
• Long service leave; • Public holidays;
• Notice of termination and redundancy pay; and
• Fair Work Information Statement.

As part of the new industrial regime, the New South Wales parliament has also passed the Industrial Relations (Commonwealth Powers) Act 2009 which gives effect to the New South Wales government’s decision to refer its industrial relations powers over the private sector to the Federal Government. However, public sector employment continues to be governed by State legislation. Not-for-profit entities are not specifically referred to in the legislation.

The other States (except Western Australia) have passed similar legislation, but in some States it is not so easy to discern whether an employee will be regulated under the State or Federal system.

We recommend that if you have employees in various States of Australia and you are operating a not-for-profit organisation you should clarify whether the parliament in your State intended not-for-profit organisations to fall within the Federal or State sphere of regulation. We can help you with this and with any other issues raised by the new Fair Work regime.

To discuss these issues or employment issues generally, we invite you to contact Sharminie Niles (Tel: 02 9466 5204) and Kylie Maxwell (Tel: 02 9466 5206) of our office.