Overview
Enterprise agreements and modern awards contain minimum entitlements for wages and conditions of employment.
Some employees are not covered by an award or an enterprise agreement. For these employees, a national minimum wage order provides a safety net of minimum wages.
The National Employment Standards (NES) are minimum standards that cannot be overridden by the terms of enterprise agreements or awards.
Agreements
Most enterprise agreements include:
- wage rates
- employment conditions (eg hours of work, meal breaks, overtime)
- a consultation process
- dispute resolution procedures
- deductions from wages for any purpose authorised by an employee.
Enterprise agreements cannot include unlawful content (such as discriminatory or objectionable terms).
Find out more
- Go to Find an agreement
- If you believe you are not getting the right pay, you can ask for help from the Fair Work Ombudsman. For more information go to the How we help you page on their website.
- To find out more about enterprise agreements, for example how they are made, see the Agreements section of our website.
Awards
If you are not covered by an agreement, your minimum wages and conditions are likely to be set by a modern award.
The modern award will deal with:
- minimum wage rates
- annual leave, and annual leave loading
- other types of leave
- hours of work
- penalty rates, overtime and casual rates
- allowances
- consultation, and
- many other minimum conditions.
Find out more
- Go to Find an award
- If you believe you are not getting the right pay, you can ask for help from the Fair Work Ombudsman. For more information go to the How we help you page on their website.
- To find out more about modern awards, for example how awards are varied, see the Awards section of our website.