Office of the Commissioner for Public Employment

Commissioner's bulletin about shift worker remediation

Public Holiday Remediation

This Bulletin is directed to shift workers who were covered by:

  • Schedules 2 to 7 of the Northern Territory Public Sector 2017-2021 Enterprise Agreement (EA).
  • The Medical Officers Northern Territory Public Sector 2018-2021 Enterprise Agreement.
  • The Northern Territory Public Sector Nurses and Midwives’ 2018-2022 Enterprise Agreement.
  • 2018-2021 Power and Water Enterprise Agreement.
  • 2018-2022 Territory Generation Enterprise Agreement.

A decision in the Fair Work Commission on 27 January 2021 in respect to CPSU employees covered by Schedule 2 of the EA resulted in a need to review records of payments and leave accruals for shift workers to determine if there is a need for backpayment of penalties or re-credit of recreation leave. This decision had a flow on effect to shift workers covered under the abovementioned enterprise agreements.

The Decision is being implemented to ensure that shift penalties and the recording of recreation leave are applied accordingly when spanning a public holiday.

The FWC Decision for Schedule 2 Employees

In summary, the decision was that a shift worker who is rostered to perform work on a public holiday, but who is on a period of recreation leave is to receive:

  • their full rate of pay
  • their shift penalties

for the hours they were rostered on that day; and that they have no recreation leave deducted.

Further, the FWC decided that for a 38-hour shift worker who is rostered off on a public holiday which falls during a period of their recreation leave should be paid 7:36 (or decimalised 7.6) hours with no deduction of accrued recreation leave for that public holiday.

Next Steps

People impacted by the decision are being contacted to confirm their details for remediation purposes, which may include payment or re-crediting of recreation leave.

Queries can be directed to workforceservices@nt.gov.au or 1800 CALL HR.