Graphic Arts, Printing and Publishing Award
Covers commercial printing, packaging, screen printing, photographic processing, book and magazine publishing, and newspaper offices. Three sectors share the same Levels 1-8 base rates but have different penalty / overtime / shift-loading regimes — general (most printing), daily newspaper (with the unusual per-shift + per-hour Saturday structure), and non-daily newspaper.
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.
What's built
- All 8 cl. 17 classifications across the three sectors — 24 classification rate rows.
- Junior rates rewritten per cl. 18.2 / 18.3 / 18.4 — three distinct schedules anchored on Levels 2 / 3 / 4 (replacing the previously fabricated 50/60/70/80/90% scale on L1).
- Apprentice rates corrected — 72.5 / 87.5%, year-12 branch and adult-apprentice scale (82 / 87 / 92 / 100% of L5).
- All cl. 26 allowances (VDT $53.42/wk, inserting $32.05/wk, three apprentice-proficiency tiers, daily / non-daily night-work allowances) plus corrected first-aid and meal-OT figures.
- Daily-newspaper Saturday composite — eight per-shift attendance fees (one per Level) plus an hourly weekend penalty for the per-hour-worked component.
- Common-across-sectors penalties: less-than-10-hour-break 200%, work-after-6-days-without-36h-break 200%, call-back 200%, and morning / afternoon / night Mon-Fri shift loadings (120% / 130% non-rotating).
- Casual minimum engagement corrected to 4 hours with newspaper variants; shiftworker weekend rates 220 / 230% added.
Known limitations
No outstanding gaps at this revision — re-verify on the next Fair Work pay-guide release.
Setup & special instructions
- Each employee must be assigned a sector — general, daily_newspaper, or non_daily_newspaper — to drive the right penalty / OT regime.
- Daily-newspaper Saturday work uses a composite '$X per shift attendance + $Y per hour worked' structure (cl. 13.7(d)(ii)). The per-shift component is a sector-scoped allowance per Level; the per-hour component runs through the weekend penalty row at ordinary rate.
- Non-daily newspaper public holiday rates split by role — publishing employees at 250%, other roles at 200%.
- • Printing
- • Publishing
- • Packaging
- • Newspapers
- • Photographic processing
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 graphic arts & printing 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