Mining Industry Award
Covers the broader Australian mining industry - extraction of metals, minerals, ores, phosphates, gemstones, mineral sands, uranium and other radioactive substances; processing, smelting and refining; on-lease transport and handling; on-site servicing, maintenance and repair of plant; and temporary labour services. Excludes black coal (MA000001), aluminium, oil / gas / hydrocarbons, brown coal, salt, and quarrying of stone / sand / gravel. Eight classifications from Entry Level Introductory to Level 7 Dual Trade Instrument Technician, with Level 3 Competent as the standard rate. Built around a $39.53 / week all-purpose industry allowance, cycle-work / FIFO support, and an annualised wage option for full-time employees.
Fully built. Rates, allowances, penalties and any required apprentice / junior rates are all wired to the rate resolver and have been verified against the consolidated award text and the latest pay guide.
Official Fair Work rates. This award’s minimum pay rates are synced directly from the Fair Work Commission’s Modern Awards Pay Database and updated automatically when the Commission changes them - including the annual wage review - so payroll always uses the current legal minimums without a manual update.
What's built
- All 8 cl. 15.1 classifications - Entry Level Introductory ($954.90) → Level 7 Dual Trade Instrument Technician ($1,325.20), with Level 3 Competent ($1,068.40) as the standard rate.
- Industry allowance ($39.53 / week, all-purpose, cl. 18.2(b)) - paid on top of base, included in penalties / loadings / annual leave pay.
- Apprentice rates: pre-2014 single-track (45 / 55 / 75 / 88%) and post-2014 (4 stages with Year-12 split - 50-55 / 60-65 / 75 / 88) plus adult apprentice greater-of rules (Year 1 = max(80% L3, applicable %); Year 2+ = max(Entry Intro fixed, applicable %)).
- Junior rates: under-17 / 17 / 18 at 75 / 85 / 100% of adult rate, applied per-classification across all 8 levels.
- Fourteen cl. 18 allowances - industry, electrician licence ($48.61 / wk all-purpose), camp (with / without meals), cooks broken shift, first aid, leading hand (3-tier), underground, meal-OT, tool, plus the rail allowance for mainline locomotive drivers (30% of min rate per hour).
- Saturday tier - first 3 hours before noon at 150%, after 3 hours / Saturday after noon / Sunday at 200%, public holiday 250%. Continuous shiftworker overtime flat 200% Mon-Sun all hours.
- Recall minimum 4 hours at overtime rate (cl. 20.3) for non-continuous shiftworkers.
- Annualised wage arrangements (cl. 17) for full-time employees - covers minimum rates, allowances, overtime, penalties and annual leave loading; outer-limit hours required, 12-month reconciliation, 14-day shortfall pay.
- Cycle work for FIFO / DIDO / BIBO operations - annual leave includes non-working days during the period (cl. 22.5).
- Pre-2010 12-hour shift roster grandfathering (cl. 12.4(c) / 12.5(d)) - applies to BOTH existing and new employees.
Known limitations
- Overtime and penalty rates are in SUBSTITUTION not cumulative (cl. 20.4(b) / 21.4) - the resolver currently stacks penalties additively. The advanced rule is flagged but the resolver implementation is required before live payroll can rely on this award.
- Continuous shiftworker classification (engaged in a continuous process AND regularly rostered Sundays / public holidays) is not modelled as an employment subtype in the schema - the resolver must read this as a role-level attribute on the employee.
- Rail allowance is a 30% percentage of the employee's classification minimum rate, not a fixed dollar amount. The placeholder allowance row carries amount = 0 and the resolver must compute it per-classification at runtime.
- Adult apprentice greater-of rules (cl. 15.5) require the resolver to compute both candidate rates and apply the maximum.
Setup & special instructions
- The industry allowance ($39.53 / week, all-purpose) is now stored as a SEPARATE allowance row, not baked into base rates. The previous seeder pattern baked it in, which inflated every classification by exactly $39.53 / week. When deploying, confirm the resolver applies all-purpose allowances correctly - otherwise displayed gross may drop $39.53 / week per FT employee.
- Standard rate for the award is Level 3 Competent ($1,068.40 / week) - used for apprentice percentages and all all-purpose allowance calculations.
- Casual minimum engagement is 2 consecutive hours per occasion (cl. 11.6), shorter than the 3-hour default in many other awards.
- Rest period between shifts - 10 hours for non-shiftworkers, 8 hours for shiftworkers (cl. 14.3). Most awards have a single 10-hour rule.
- Meal break differs by shiftworker status - non-shiftworker UNPAID 30 min after 5 hours; shiftworker PAID 20 min for ≤10 hr shift OR 40 min for >10 hr shift (cl. 14.1).
- Roster variation requires only 48 hours notice (cl. 13.2), shorter than the 7-day default in many awards.
- Pay frequency may be weekly, fortnightly OR monthly (cl. 16.1) - most awards exclude monthly.
- • Mining
- • Mineral processing
- • Smelting and refining
- • Mining services
- • Surface mining
- • Underground mining
- • Mining maintenance trades
- • FIFO / DIDO operations
The consolidated award text is the authoritative source. Always confirm specific obligations against the award itself - Mployr's implementation status reflects what we've seeded; it does not replace legal advice.
Want to see this award running on your data?
We can demo a pay run on the mining industry award using sample employees in a sandbox tenant - including any of the special-instruction steps above so you can see exactly what your team's day-to-day looks like.
Book a demo