December saw the last Equal Remuneration Order (ERO) pay rise for employees on the SCHADS Award. This completes the ERO process that began in 2012, which saw relevant employees receiving both the ERO and the national minimum wage increases, concurrently.

This is the final ERO. What is great for administrators is the merging of the duplicate references to the old State-based awards during the nine-year transition. These are now phased out and the Award pay table is subsequently easy to read.

Going forward, the SCHADS will be indexed just once annually – typically in July – by the Fair Wage process. For more information, and the pay rates, see the FairWork website.