Meat Industry Award
Covers the meat industry across three operational streams - processing (abattoirs), manufacturing (smallgoods), and retail (butcher shops, plus retail / wholesale sales sections of processing or manufacturing establishments). 8 classifications (MI 1-8), standard rate MI 7. MI 2 (Trainee) is NOT available in meat-processing establishments - processing employees go MI 1 → MI 3 directly.
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. 16.1 classifications at the July 2025 figures.
- Junior rates: under-17 (50%), 17 (60%), 18 (75%), 19 (85%), 20+ adult.
- Daily-hire engagement type with 10% loading on minimum hourly rate (cl. 11.4).
- Casual loading 25% per cl. 12.4 - NOT paid on overtime (cl. 22.1(c)).
- Allowances: meal-OT (>1.5h unnotified), per-day first-aid, two leading-hand tiers, weekly clothing / laundry, three cold-work bands (0 to -10°C, -10 to -20°C, below -20°C).
- Stream-scoped weekend ordinary-hours rules per cl. 14.3 / 14.4 / 14.5.
Known limitations
- Post-2014 / school-based apprentice tables (cl. 16.3) are not fully detailed in the seeded data - confirm before relying on this for apprentice payroll.
Setup & special instructions
- Each employee must be assigned a stream - processing, manufacturing or retail - to drive the right ordinary-hours rules and the MI 2 availability flag.
- Daily-hire employees (cl. 11) attract a 10% loading on the minimum hourly rate, with a 4-hour minimum engagement.
- First-aid allowance is per-DAY ($3.99), not per-week - unusual for an award.
- • Meat industry
- • Abattoirs
- • Smallgoods
- • Butcher shops
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 meat 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