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penalties of up to $4.95 million per
The Regulations also require that the records are legible, are in English, and are accessible to Fair Work Inspectors. Records can be held electronically or as paper records, but electronic systems must maintain data integrity, provide immediate hard copy production capability, and include robust backup procedures. Further, changes made to correct errors must be documented with timestamps and authorisation trails. Section 536 of the FWA requires that payslips must be delivered to employees within one working day of payment, electronically or physically and must contain the prescribed information from the Regulations. 2. What happens if a business doesn’t keep these records? For businesses, record- keeping failures can trigger: a breach of the FWA;
than prosecuting the University for alleged underpayments, the FWO prosecuted UNSW for record-keeping failures. Failure to make and keep records of hours, rates of pay and details of loadings and other entitlements owed to casual academic employees; and Failure to include required information in pay slips, such as basic information relating This included allegations of: As of the date of writing the article, the parties are awaiting the Court’s decision on penalty. 3. Complex Long Service Leave requirements If the FWA requirements weren’t complicated enough, Long Service Leave (LSL) presents another layer of complexity for payroll teams. Unlike most employment to pay rates and casual loading.
contravention (if the breach is a ‘serious contravention’); and a ‘reverse onus of proof’. The ‘reverse onus of proof’ is a further burden on employers. If an employer is accused of a breach of the FWA (e.g. underpayment of staff), and has not kept the prescribed records, the ‘onus of proof’ (the presumption of innocence) is flipped. In practical terms, this means an employer will be presumed to have committed the offence unless they can disprove it. Disproving underpayment claims can be very difficult for an employer when they haven’t maintained the FWO’s prosecution of the University of New South Wales. The FWO alleges that the University engaged in record- keeping practices that made it difficult for the FWO to identify whether employees had been underpaid or not. Rather appropriate records. A current example is
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GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE ISSUE 13
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