00:00:00:03 – 00:00:05:00
Some other businesses are really hesitant to undertake a workplace relations review

00:00:05:00 – 00:00:08:17
because they’ve got a low number of employees and in some cases

00:00:08:22 – 00:00:11:17
the majority of their workforce are contractors.

00:00:11:25 – 00:00:13:15
I know that’s something that’s been coming up

00:00:13:15 – 00:00:16:24
with a lot of our clients very recently.

00:00:17:13 – 00:00:21:01
Do you have any advice or experience in terms of the workplace

00:00:21:01 – 00:00:24:24
relations review, whether or not it’s applicable

00:00:24:24 – 00:00:29:24
or going to be suitable for businesses that have a high number of contractors?

00:00:31:07 – 00:00:35:24
Well, the obligations to employment relations exist in all businesses,

00:00:36:13 – 00:00:41:05
ensuring that you manage your workforce to the appropriate legislation,

00:00:41:13 – 00:00:44:23
not with just contractors, to volunteers through to

00:00:45:14 – 00:00:48:15
anyone else who provide services to the business.

00:00:48:16 – 00:00:51:28
The Fair Work Act has a

00:00:52:04 – 00:00:55:01
lot of mechanics around it under the heading of sham

00:00:55:01 – 00:01:00:18
contracting about whether or not someone is the genuine contractor

00:01:01:28 – 00:01:03:12
over through the totality of

00:01:03:12 – 00:01:06:27
the relationship and how the business seems to interact with each other.

00:01:07:16 – 00:01:11:17
Some businesses may have a high control factor within

00:01:12:12 – 00:01:16:10
how they operate and could make that person look more like an employee

00:01:16:17 – 00:01:19:26
than a genuine contracting relationship.

00:01:20:10 – 00:01:22:16
Good business contractors.

00:01:22:16 – 00:01:24:02
They’re in their own space,

00:01:24:02 – 00:01:27:19
operating their own business in the subset of your business.

00:01:28:07 – 00:01:31:23
And it’s about that relationship of two business owners getting together

00:01:31:23 – 00:01:36:05
and making the one product, or has one got an authority or power of the other one

00:01:36:14 – 00:01:39:29
kind of making them look like an employment relationship.

00:01:41:11 – 00:01:44:15
And depending on who you go to for advice,

00:01:44:28 – 00:01:48:10
they may be only looking at their single side of the story.

00:01:48:21 – 00:01:52:09
Accountants might just look at whether or not the ATO

00:01:52:28 – 00:01:56:13
is super and things like that look like that the are a worker.

00:01:56:20 – 00:02:00:15
Whereas the Fair Work Ombudsman test could come back completely different.

00:02:00:15 – 00:02:04:16
What’s contractor on one could be an employee under the other or hopefully

00:02:04:16 – 00:02:08:23
they align and they are contractors or they are employees.

00:02:09:11 – 00:02:12:23
But the most risky thing there is that well

00:02:13:12 – 00:02:16:02
to ensure that your contractors are contractors

00:02:16:07 – 00:02:19:11
and that they’re not going to lead to future risks of employment relations

00:02:20:11 – 00:02:21:10
or gaming

00:02:21:10 – 00:02:24:13
the rights of employment relations,

00:02:24:13 – 00:02:28:07
things such as back payment of entitlements and wages.

00:02:28:07 – 00:02:30:21
Super coverage under worker’s compensation

00:02:32:12 – 00:02:35:07
are just some of the sort of key factors, and it’s not about

00:02:37:07 – 00:02:39:22
the the factors that are part of the test,

00:02:40:23 – 00:02:43:22
when it comes back to wages, it could be up to six years past

00:02:43:22 – 00:02:45:23
that they could claim for underpayment of wages

00:02:45:23 – 00:02:48:10
or entitlement claims and things like that.