New industrial award covering Australian podiatrists

LuckyLisfranc · Feb 6, 2009

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The Industrial Relations Commission has recently released exposure drafts of new Commonwealth Awards covering health professionals.

There are separate awards for medical practitioners, nurses, and then everyone else.

Podiatrists are to be covered under the Health Professionals and Support Services Industry and Occupational Award 2010.

A copy of the new draft award can be found here: http://www.airc.gov.au/awardmod/databases/health/Exposure/health_professionals_exposure.pdf

There will be many implications, particularly for private practices, across Australia.

I am sure we will see an end to Saturday clinics (50% loading), and an increase in private billing fees...

LL

Kara47 · Feb 13, 2009

If I'm reading this correctly then as new graduate I'll be on less than what I'm currently earning as a self employed cleaner. Certainly makes the loss of income while studying & the $20,000 HECS fees worthwhile (NOT!!)
I thought the award for Public Health positions in NSW was poor, but this takes the cake!
Definitely will be going into private practice/ self employment!!

LuckyLisfranc · Feb 14, 2009

These are minimum award conditions. The medical practitioner award is not that much better...

It is likely that most employers will have to offer far better terms than this - just look at what typical public sector medical practitioners and other health providers get currently.

If you feel strongly about this, you should write a letter of concern to APodC before the timeline for submissions runs out.

LL

Kara47 · Feb 16, 2009

Thanks, I'll definitely do that & let other students know as well!

cpcpod · Mar 16, 2009

Kara,
That sounds like a great idea to get other students to comment as well. Is there a communication tool for all the Podiatry students in Australia? Do all the student groups from different uni's talk to each other?

Kara47 · Mar 19, 2009

Hello Linda,
Not that I know of, although I have just joined a Rural Health Club through the Uni, which communicates with Health students of other Uni's. Must get onto this & spread the word.
Cheers,
Kara

LuckyLisfranc · Mar 30, 2009

Interesting discussion of these new awards (from a GP perspective) in the Australian Doctor:

Alarm sounded on awards proposal 25-Mar-2009

New draft awards for general practice employees may cost practice principals dearly. By John Kron

DR Lucy France is not a fan of the Clerical and Administrative Employees Award that covers the terms and conditions of staff working in her general practice. The NSW award is complex and, at a grand total of 60 pages, lengthy.

“If you’re not across all the detail you can get caught out,” says Dr France, who owns the practice with her GP husband Dr Damien Bray, and has four GPs working as inde pendent contractors.

She cites the example of when they hired a part-time practice manager and agreed for her to work from 10am- 3pm.

“However, there were days that she had to work after 3pm and we hadn’t realised that under the award she was entitled to be paid time-and-a- half for working overtime,” she says. “We paid it, but felt it was ridiculous to call it overtime when it occurred during normal practice hours. More importantly, it was a cost that meant we couldn’t keep her on, which, if we had realised this, we could have done with avoiding the episode altogether.”

Dr France, like many employers across Australia, has to deal with headaches associated with the current award system — a messy jumble of 3000 state and fed eral awards that has been accumulated in an ad hoc manner over the years.

For general practice owners in particular, managing the different terms and conditions of separate awards, such as for receptionists, nurses and individual allied health profes sionals, is often “highly con fusing and burdensome”, according to feedback received by the AMA.

“Each award that applies in medical practices holds signif icant differences in terms of hours of work and allowances,” says Ms Sarah Dahlenburg, NSW AMA director of medicolegal and employment relations.

“The vast array of differing entitlements not only makes it difficult for doctors to administer payroll, but has also created inequities amongst private practice staff, such as differing entitlements pertaining to uniform and laundry allowances,” she says.

In March last year when the Rudd Government instructed the Australian Industrial Rela tions Commission (AIRC) to “modernise” the award system — defined as simplify ing and reducing the number of awards — the decision was generally greeted as a long overdue and positive move.

Numerous submissions on awards relevant to the health sector in particular were received by the AIRC late last year. In January it released draft awards, including the establishment of two new awards affecting general prac tice, to be applied nationwide, plus an award specifically aimed at employee doctors (see box, below).

The first award covers nurses only, in public and pri vate hospitals and private medical practices, including general practices. The second covers employees grouped together under the title “health industry and support services”, which includes health professionals ranging from acupuncturists and phys iotherapists to youth workers, and support services workers from general clerks and recep tionists to chefs.

After seeing the wording of the drafts, medical organisa tions have lost their enthusi asm for the modernising of the awards, particularly over fea tures such as a mandatory 10- minute tea-break every four hours, and new allowances such as for clothing damage, for providing “occasional interpreting” services and for performing “nauseous work”.

The standout concern is the lack of differentiation between the private and public sector, a turnaround from the current award system where there are separate awards for public hospital, private hospital and private practice nurses.

“It would not be financially viable for all medical practices to employ nurses at public or private hospital rates of pay,” Ms Dahlenburg says.

“The pay for public and private hospital is substantially higher than private practice due to more unfavourable working conditions such as 24-hour shift rosters, a heavier workload and high levels of pressure. In contrast, private practice nurses often work under less stressful working conditions and tend to work set day shifts,” she says.

With additional costs for implementing changes for other employees, the cost burden if the draft award for nurses is implemented would see wage rises of up to 12%, according to the federal AMA.

Not surprisingly, Mr Nick Blake, senior industrial officer at the Australian Nursing Fed eration, says his organisation is generally happy with the draft award.

“We’re pleased that nurses have their own award because it recognises that minimum wages and conditions for all nurses should be based on the skill, educational qualification and levels of responsibility of the nurse, and should not be based on the sector in which the nurse happens to be employed at a particular time.”

Not all owners of general practices are unhappy with the draft awards.

Mrs Kylie El-Sheikh, CEO of Tristar Medical Group, which has 18 practices in rural and regional NSW and Victo ria, says one positive inclusion has recognised receptionists who perform higher duties, such as ordering and managing the storage of vaccines. Mrs El- Sheikh says this can be used as a form of reward for able employees to step outside of their routine tasks and perform select duties at a higher level.

Under the current award the only way to reward such a receptionist is to increase their entire wage. “Practice owners, understandably, would prefer not to do this because of the excessive expense. However, if it isn’t done, the receptionist may be disadvantaged,” Mrs El-Sheikh says.

“But it is made clearer and fairer under the draft award, which stipulates that the receptionist performing higher duties is to be paid for the time worked for two hours or less, or a full day or shift where the time worked exceeds two hours,” she says.

She also approves of other new features in the draft awards such as the inclusion of a list of the names of eligi ble superannuation funds, which saves time for employ ers, and the entitlement for employees to receive paid leave in advance, which is more convenient for small or isolated practices that have to close on specific dates.

Mrs El-Sheikh is “not overly troubled” about giving nurses a separate award because the wording of the draft awards is similar to the draft award for other employees, making it relatively easy to manage.

However, if it was to be implemented, she would like to see changes to “discourage a work culture as seen in the public hospital system”, such as nurses having rostered days off, which would be hard on smaller general practices where there is only one nurse.

A feature of the draft awards that has generated widespread dismay among practice owners is the defini tion of the standard hours of work for employees as 6am- 6pm, Monday-Friday.

In a written submission to the AIRC, AMA NSW is requesting that the hours should be changed to 7am- 9pm Monday-Friday, and 8am-4.30pm on Saturdays.

Mrs El-Sheikh agrees with this proposal, saying practice staff sometimes have a delayed finish past 6pm and practices are often open on Saturdays and Sundays.

“The proposed span of standard hours is not realistic and cost prohibitive to pro viding these services. Having to pay employees time-and- a-half for overtime is a real deterrent to opening [extended hours],” she says. “At our South West Rocks practice [in NSW] we tried to open for extended hours but had to stop ... when we couldn’t cover the increased wage costs of employees.”

Medical organisations would have preferred a single private medical practice award that recognises the unique characteristics of medical practices instead of the two awards, says Ms Dahlenburg of NSW AMA.

“If this can’t be done then the bottom line is that changes will hopefully be made by the AIRC after they receive sub missions on their draft awards that at least better reflect the reality of private medical prac tice,” she says.

There are precedents for changes to draft awards after submissions are received from interested parties. For exam ple, last year the AIRC pre sented its draft for a single award for all employees in the retail sector. It was later per suaded to establish separate awards for the fast food, phar macy and hairdressing sectors.

Undoubtedly many general practice owners will be hoping for a similar willingness to change for the health sector.

THE TIMING FOR NEW EMPLOYEE AWARDS

January: After receiving submissions from relevant parties last year, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) released its draft awards for the terms and conditions of employees working in the health sector, including general practice.

February: The AIRC received written and oral submissions on the draft awards.

3 April: The AIRC will make its final decision on the wording of the new awards.

1 January 2010: The target date for implementation of the new awards.

The new awards will apply to employees that come under the federal system, which includes all general practices that are incorporated and all other general practices in Victoria (which came under the federal system in the 1990s), the ACT and the NT.

The intent is to have the other states (NSW, SA, WA, Queensland and Tasmania) voluntarily come under the federal system too, but until then employees working in general practices that are not incorporated will stay under state awards.

AMA NSW was the only doctors' organisation to make a submission to the AIRC before the development of the draft awards. The federal AMA and AMA NSW have made submissions on the draft awards.

BROADER COVERAGE WITH AWARDS

THE Australian Industrial Relations Commission's draft awards for the health sector include a new award specifically for employee doctors.

The award would broaden the coverage of employee doctors beyond current awards, which cater for those working in the public sector, such as community health centres, Aboriginal medical services and hospitals, as well as some private hospitals, to include all other workplaces, such as general and specialist practices.

Like the current award system, the draft award allows doctors to negotiate collective agreements on terms and conditions and rates of pay, which are usually well above those stipulated in the awards.

It is unlikely employee doctors will be prepared to work for the pay rates stipulated in the draft award. For example, for a senior registrar the minimum wage is $63,287 a year for a 38-hour week. Current collective agreements under various state and territory awards have the wage for senior registrars above $250,000.

However, most non-principal GPs working in general practice are considered independent contractors who sign contracts with practice owners. These GPs might be required to sign new contracts to exclude themselves from the new award.

Professor Andrew Stewart, professor of law at the University of Adelaide and legal consultant for law firm Piper Alderman, says the key issue in answering this question is whether a GP would be regarded by a court as an employee or independent contractor under the terms and conditions of an existing contract.

"The contracts I have seen are generally worded in such a way so as to be clear that the GP is not an employee. Of course, these contracts have to be tested in a court of law to be definite however, until this is done GPs may continue to be considered as independent contractors," Professor Stewart says.

"As a result, when the new award for employee doctors comes into force [1 January 2010], GPs working in private or corporate general practices on that basis shouldn't need to sign new contracts."
Click to expand...

Deansargeant · Aug 16, 2010

Do you know if there is an award that covers sub-contracting? I read the award from the link and sub-contracting wasn't mentioned.

Thanks,
Dean

BillW · Aug 16, 2010

Dean you have to be very careful that what you are counting as subcontracting is actually subcontracting. Talk to the ATO and run it past them because if you are paying someone as a subcontractor and they can prove they were actually employed then you get raked over the coals. At a minimum you will have to pay them things like super for the whole time they worked for you, even though this was built into the rate.
I am sure there is a checklist on the ATO website, and it really depends on how much power employer has over the subcontractor. If they are genuinely a subcontractor then it is their responsibility to follow the award not yours.
Good luck
Bill

MarkC78 · Aug 16, 2010

As far as super goes, we were advised by our accountant that we had to pay our sub contractor super anyway.

Here is an ATO link for reference http://www.ato.gov.au/superfunds/content.asp?doc=/content/19159.htm

Deansargeant · Aug 21, 2010

BillW said: ↑

Dean you have to be very careful that what you are counting as subcontracting is actually subcontracting. Talk to the ATO and run it past them because if you are paying someone as a subcontractor and they can prove they were actually employed then you get raked over the coals. At a minimum you will have to pay them things like super for the whole time they worked for you, even though this was built into the rate.
I am sure there is a checklist on the ATO website, and it really depends on how much power employer has over the subcontractor. If they are genuinely a subcontractor then it is their responsibility to follow the award not yours.
Good luck
Bill
Click to expand...

Thanks Bill,

I am trying to figure this out as i am meant to be the sub-contractor, but work for one company on a full-time basis (5.5days per week) and i need to know where i stand, thanks for the link to the ATO and i will definately be contacting them asap!

Thanks again

BillW · Aug 23, 2010

I would be interested in finding out how you go, Dean. My understanding is in conflict with most common podiatry agreements, including who should pay podiarist malpractice insurance. I don't see how people are counted as contractors and not employees. However the doctors seem to be able to do it as well. There must be some difference structurally but I think employers who have these arrangements are vunerable.
We have our podiatrist as employees, we pay the insurance and we have signed a flexibility agreement for the conditions in the award that we do not meet, such as forgoing allowances for higher pay levels. The flexibility agreements met the better Off analysis and everyone was happy.
As I say I would be interested to here how you are set up as a contractor but I would be careful about following suit.

podcare · Sep 1, 2010

The following was sent to all SA Podiatry Association members yesterday:

Award Information
By now you are all (hopefully) aware that podiatrists working in private practice are employed under a new Modern Award known as the Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2010 (MA000027).

If you employ podiatrists and you are a Pty Ltd Company/Business the new Modern Award Conditions came info effect 1st January 2010 and the pay rates 1st July 2010. What this means is you need to provide to your staff a copy of the Award, an updated Job Description, a new employment contract and provide a copy of the National Employment Standards (NES) to staff. (Everything needs to be documented).

If you are a sole trader the above will all apply 1st January 2011.

DO NOT IGNORE THIS WARNING – FAIR WORK AUDITORS ARE RANDOMLY KNOCKING ON DOORS INSPECTING EMPLOYEE DOCUMENTATION. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE ABOVE IN PLACE YOU COULD BE FINED $30,000 ON THE SPOT.

The Association has an updated Podiatry Agreement template and an example Job Description available to members through the Members Only Section of the website (I have also attached a copy with this email as a word doc.). Please modify to suit your circumstances. To Download the NES and the Health Professionals and Support Services Award visit the Fair Work website at www.fairwork.gov.au

The paperwork never ends!

ClintonAbel · Oct 14, 2010

On the issue of Sub Contracting to regular podiatrists. I originally went to a commercial lawyer, and we spoke at length regarding work hours set vs fixed, uniforms, requirements to attend team meetings and so on. He advised me of the tests used by the courts to determine if a sub contractor really was a sub contractor or an employee. Big bill$$

Then I went to an ATO information session at the local RSL. (Free) The guy presenting was an ATO official with an audit background. Simply put it (at that time) if you contract to a Pty. Ltd Company there is no question to answer as to the status of a contractor.

The ATO produced a Superannuation Guarantee Ruling on this issue. You can download the full ruling from the ATO website.

Also, this link is a calculator for deciding if your team member is a contractor or employee.

http://www.ato.gov.au/businesses/co...htm&pc=001/003/079/001/003&mnu=&mfp=&st=&cy=1

Hope this helps clear the muddy waters around contracting.

Clinton

New industrial award covering Australian podiatrists

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New industrial award covering Australian podiatrists

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Deansargeant Member

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podcare Active Member

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The Diabetes-Industrial Complex

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Share This Page

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