Q: An employee who works irregular hours (always more than contact hours) and we pay OWP – 4 week average for annual leave has been on-call over the Xmas/new year period, as no one else was keen, and as we pay the PH as an incentive as well as the alt day so he offered. He had many hours of callouts at double time over these weeks plus he received an on-call allowance. He is now taking 4 weeks of annual leave.
With all this extra work and the on-call allowance it has pushed his OWP-4 week average rate to over 1.5 of his basic hourly rate. I just want to confirm that the out of hours callouts and the on-call allowance are to included in this calculation.
A: If you cannot define the week for OWP under Section 8(1) then you have to use the 4 week average Section 8(2) and that will pick up all the extras in that 4 week period (from the last pay period). Only when the 1.5 is being paid on a PH can penal rates be excluded but this has nothing to do with OWP.