On-Site Award MA000020: Builder Quick Reference

What it is

The Building and Construction General On-Site Award 2020 (MA000020) sets minimum pay and conditions for on-site building work in Australia. If you build houses and have people on the tools as employees, this is your instrument, and it is the spine the apprentice, casual and RDO rules hang off.

Who it covers

Clause 4.1 covers employers throughout Australia in the on-site building, engineering and civil construction industry, and their employees in the Schedule A classifications, to the exclusion of any other modern award. Clause 4.2 defines that industry as general building and construction, civil construction and metal and engineering construction, in all cases undertaken on-site. Coverage follows the classification, not the job title, and clause 4.5 also reaches labour hire.

Clause 8.1 allows four engagement types and no others: daily hire, full-time weekly hire, part-time weekly hire and casual. Clause 8.2 requires you to tell each employee in writing, at engagement, which one they are. That line gets skipped constantly.

Classifications and the standard rate

Levels run CW/ECW 1 through CW/ECW 8, with ECW 9 in engineering construction.

CW1 is the level builders misread. It is not one rate. It has four steps, level a through level d, and an employee moves up as they meet the training and experience in the classification definitions. Leaving a labourer on CW1 level a for years because nobody revisited it is a quiet, compounding underpayment.

CW3 is the tradesperson level and it matters beyond its own rate: clause 2 defines the standard rate as the Level 3 rate, and every apprentice percentage is calculated on it.

Leading hands take a percentage of the highest classification supervised under clause 19.2, from 2.4 per cent for one person to 9.0 per cent for more than 10.

Ordinary hours and daily hire

Ordinary hours are 38 per week, averaged over a 20 day four week cycle, worked between 7.00 am and 6.00 pm Monday to Friday. The cycle exists so RDOs accrue: clause 16.2 makes each day eight hours, of which 7.6 are paid and 0.4 of an hour accrues towards an RDO.

Daily hire has no equivalent outside construction. Under clause 9.1 either side gives one day of notice, or one day of pay is paid or forfeited, and a tradesperson is allowed one hour before termination to gather, clean, sharpen, pack and transport tools. That works because s123(3)(b) of the Fair Work Act 2009 switches the NES notice provisions off for daily hire employees in building and construction. Daily hire is not casual. These employees accrue leave and are paid a follow-the-job loading inside the hourly rate.

Overtime, penalties and allowances

Overtime Monday to Friday runs at 150 per cent for the first two hours and 200 per cent after that, with the same pattern before noon on Saturday, and 200 per cent for Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Casuals take a 25 per cent loading on ordinary hours under clause 12.4 and 275 per cent on a public holiday under clause 12.6.

Allowances are where the money hides. The award stacks an industry allowance, a tool allowance, fares and travel plus site and disability allowances on the classification rate, and many are payable for all purposes, so they enter the rate used to calculate penalties, loadings and annual leave pay. Published residential hourly rates already fold in industry allowance, follow-the-job loading and tool allowance, so never add them twice.

Redundancy is not the NES scheme

Clause 41 is an industry specific redundancy scheme. Section 123(4)(b) of the Fair Work Act switches the NES redundancy subdivision off entirely for an employee covered by such a scheme, and the Fair Work Ombudsman confirms these schemes can override the NES exceptions. The exception builders care about is the small business one. Fewer than 15 staff does not end the conversation. Read clause 41 and confirm the amount before you sign anything off. Apprentices sit outside it either way: clause 14.2(e) and s123(4)(a) both exclude them.

Where the current rates live

The Annual Wage Review takes effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July each year, so FY2026-27 rates apply now. The 2026 decision lifted modern award rates by 4.75 per cent from 1 July 2026 and set the lowest award rate for ongoing employment at $1004.90 per week or $26.44 per hour. Take the figure from the MA000020 pay guide, effective 1 July 2026, or from the Pay and Conditions Tool. Then diary the first pay period after 1 July, every year.