Music venues Australia-wide have just experienced a crackdown from police and government officials in the national Operation Unite, a police blitz that took a hardline stance in stamping out booze-fuelled crime and anti-social behaviour at license venues, which saw more than 1,000 extra police officers mobilised across NSW, along with hundreds more across Australia’s state capitals.
All alongside tough new restrictions being introduced nationwide, including Sydney’s tighter grip of late-night precincts, Adelaide venues staring down the barrel of a strict new Late Night Trading Code of Practice, and up north in Brisbane, government are ensuring their Drink Safe Precinct initiative remains financially sustainable by charging a levy on venues to foot the bill for the price of policing.
All which has made it a very difficult year to be a venue owner and proprietor, and now the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) is making sure that 2013 is a year to make it a fair one to be working at a music venue.
According to The Shout, the FWO’s Nicholas Wilson has confirmed they will conduct a national education and compliance program next year that will target 1,000 pub, bar and accommodation employers to check for Fair Work laws aren’t in breach for full-time, part-time, casual or fixed-term employees at entertainment venues.
The FWO have contacted more than 1,000 pubs, taverns, bars, and music venues across the country to audit their employment records, which if found in breach, could result in penalties of up to $33,000 to employers, and result in hundreds and thousands of dollars in back-payments for wronged employees.The FWO have contacted more than 1,000 pubs, taverns, bars, and music venues across the country to audit their employment records
Inspectors will be looking closely at records to check that the correct minimum rates of pay, penalty rates, loadings, and allowances are all complying with record-keeping and pay slip obligations.
The focus on entertainment venues is the first stage in a larger three-year campaign by the FWO to focus on the hospitality industry. Fair Work Obudsman Nicholas Wilson says their campaign plans to look deeper into an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of workers and generates a large number of complaints each year.
In 2008, a similar national education and compliance campaign by the FWO resulted in 664 employers being audited Australia-wide, finding that 36% of employers were not compliant with workplace laws and industry standards, recovering a total of $1.6 million in back-pay for 4,679 underpaid employees nationally.
So if you’re involved in a music venue, a bar, a club – any entertainment venue – it would be a wise idea to spend some of the Christmas downtime going over the books.
