Journalists Published Media Award

Coverage has to be tested role by role inside the publication. A publishing business can have some employees covered by this award and others covered somewhere else.

• Check the employee's actual function, not just the employer's industry label.
• Apply the specific exclusions for printing, broadcasting and clerical work.
• Use the most appropriate award classification where more than one award could apply, including for on-hire staff.

Rostering flexibility exists, but it sits inside a detailed hours framework. The agreement process and the day off rules matter just as much as the roster pattern itself.

• Ordinary hours average 38 a week and can be worked over 5 days in 7, 19 days in 20, 9 days in 10, or 4 days in each 5 day cycle.
• A workplace pattern must be agreed with the majority of affected employees, and an individual employee can agree to a different arrangement if the clause requirements are still met.
• Ordinary hours must be at least 4 and no more than 11 a day, or 12 by agreement with the employee, and each employee must still receive at least 2 days off in every 7 days.

Time recording should follow the award's own duty-time rules rather than a generic timesheet assumption, particularly for field work and travel-heavy assignments.

• Make-up time can only be worked if the employee elects to do it and the employer consents.
• Except on a distant engagement, duty time counts continuously from entering upon duty until finishing duty.
• When work begins away from the office, the award's definition of entering upon duty needs to be applied carefully, especially for temporary assignments away from the employee's usual town or city.

Some higher classifications sit outside the usual hours and overtime framework, but the exemption is specific and does not remove the weekly days off protection.

• Part 3 and Part 5 do not apply to Levels 12 and 13, Level 10 by a suburban newspaper, or Level 9 by a country non-daily newspaper.
• The part-time and casual overtime provisions named in clause 4.9(b) also do not apply to those employees.
• Even for those exempt employees, the award still requires at least 2 days off each week, and if that does not happen the employee must be paid under clause 18.6.

This award treats overtime administration as a recordkeeping issue as well as a pay issue. A newsroom needs an orderly system for banking, taking and paying out time off instead.

• Daily overtime is ordinarily banked as time off instead at single time unless payment is mutually agreed.
• Untaken time off instead must be paid out if it has not been taken within 4 months, and it must also be paid out on termination subject to the award terms.
• The employer must keep accurate overtime and time-off records and make individual records readily accessible to the employee.

Allowance clauses in this award are narrow and role specific. They should be applied from the text of clause 16, not from broad newsroom custom.

• Pay allowances only where the clause actually entitles the employee to them and identify them separately on the pay record.
• The sub-editing allowance is an all-purpose allowance, but only for the narrow sub-editor situations described in clause 16.2(b).
• The award also deals with air travel insurance or indemnity and reasonable compensation for damage to clothing and personal effects arising from employment.

PR799347, PR799503

The current consolidated award incorporates these recent variation determinations. Use the consolidated wording when checking any affected clause, schedule, rate or allowance.

Affected: 14 - Minimum rates, 16 - Allowances, Schedule A - Summary of Hourly Rates of Pay, Schedule B - Summary of Monetary Allowances