Horticulture Award brings minimum wage for pickers

In February, the Fair Work Commission announced its final decision to make changes to the Award, with those to apply for the first full pay after today.

Fair Work Ombudsman Sandra Parker said all growers and other employers were expected to meet their legal obligations to their employees.

"Ensuring compliance in the horticulture industry continues to be a priority for the Fair Work Ombudsman, and we urge employers and workers to reach out to us if they need advice or help," she said.

But industry representatives have expressed concern about the potential impact on an industry that is already struggling to find labour.

Summerfruit Australia chief executive officer Trevor Ranford said the new processes would involve increased paperwork for producers, and potentially a loss in productivity.

"The advantage of piecework was the people who wanted to work harder were paid appropriately for their work," he said.

"That incentive has been taken out.

"It is putting additional costs onto production, and for some growers that will be another nail in the coffin."

Mr Ranford said the industry was struggling to find labour, with the loss of the backpacker workforce, but he did not believe a minimum wage would entice new workers.

"With piece work, you'd get people who wanted to work hard and make a good return but going back to a baseline with mean lost productivity," he said.

But the Australian Workers Union has welcomed the move, saying it would put a safety net in place for workers.

AWU National Secretary Daniel Walton said fruit picking was tough, important work and at the very least those workers deserved to earn the Australian minimum wage.

"Of course we're going to see more scaremongering about consumers prices, despite the fact fruit prices have actually been relatively stable over the past two years when COVID put unprecedented pressure on the labour force," he said.

"But even if we accept the dubious point that prices will go up slightly on average, what's the argument? That we should encourage an underclass of workers in Australia on third world wages so our supermarket berries cost one per cent less?

"This ruling is a huge advance for this industry and for all the farmers who are already doing the right thing."

The new minimum wage guarantees all pieceworkers be paid at least the hourly rate of $25.41 for the number of hours worked.

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However, if the pieceworker would earn more than the minimum wage guarantee for the day based on the piece work rate and their productivity, they have to be paid the higher amount.

Where piece rates are used, employers must fix the piece rate at an amount so that a pieceworker, working at the average productivity of a competent pieceworker, will earn at least 15 per cent more per hour than the minimum hourly rate for their classification level.

The new changes also coming with more record-keeping obligations.

Employers must record the hours worked by all pieceworkers and the piece rates applied.

New information is also required in the written piecework record pieceworkers receive before starting work.

Full details on all the changes and the new resources to help employers are available at the Fair Work Ombudsman's Horticulture Showcase.

Employers and employees can visit fairwork.gov.au, call the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94 or a free interpreter service on 13 14 50. Concerns can also be reported anonymously - in your language.

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