Sunday Penalties for Casual Restaurant Staff Reduced

19th May 2014

A full bench of the Fair Work Commission has decided to reduce the penalty rate payable to casual restaurant staff on Sundays from 75% to 50% of the ordinary award wage. In a majority decision, the Commission decided that:

“a 50% Sunday penalty rate is generally appropriate for employees under the Restaurant Industry Award, for transient and lower-skilled casual employees working mainly on weekends, who are primarily younger workers, the superimposition of the casual loading of 25% in addition to the 50% penalty tends to overcompensate them for working on Sundays and is more than is required to attract them for work on that day.”

The decision arose from an appeal against the original decision to maintain the casual loading of 25% on top of the Sunday penalty of 50% under the Restaurant Industry Award. However, it is not all good news for employers as the full bench decided to maintain the Sunday penalty at the higher rate of 50% of the ordinary award wage and apply this to all staff (full-time, part-time and casual) engaged as Food and beverage attendant levels 1, 2 and 3. The Commission rejected, as a general proposition, the level of disability for working on Sundays is no higher than that for Saturdays. Further, to protect the take-home pay of existing employees, there will be an additional requirement that no existing employee classified as level 3 or above should be moved down to levels 1 or 2 or be discriminated against in the allocation of work as a result of this variation.

The variation to the Restaurant Industry Award will commence on 1 July 2014.