What are ordinary wages?
When you take long service leave, the payment from the scheme will be calculated at your ordinary wages.
Ordinary wages are the wages paid to the worker for cleaning work under an award or agreement and include:
- Award rate of pay
- Over award payments
- Shiftwork, weekend work and public holiday penalty rates on normal rostered shifts forming ordinary hours of duty (other than overtime)
- Annual leave (where taken as leave)
- Bereavement leave
- Personal/Carer’s leave
- Casual loading
- Long service leave (where taken as leave)
- Sick leave
- Paid maternity/paternity leave/parental leave (when paid directly by the employer)
- Public holidays
- Workers compensation payments (when made by the employer in the first instance and the employer is then reimbursed by the insurance company)
- Jury service
- First aid allowance
- Toilet allowance
- Refuse Collection allowance
- Broken Shift allowance
Wages must be a gross figure – before tax and any other deductions including salary sacrificing.
Payments that are not to be included when calculating ordinary wages are:
- Overtime (for full-time staff), leave loading, lump sum payments for accrued annual leave, sick leave or long service leave paid on termination, payments in lieu of notice
- Christmas bonuses and ex-gratia payments, travel allowance, payment for materials & equipment, one-off bonuses, meal allowance, protective clothing allowance
- Workers compensation payments where they are paid directly by the insurance company to the worker and redundancy payments
- Australian Government Paid Parental Leave Scheme
- Superannuation
