Know your rights on public holidays this Easter

With five designated public holidays over eight calendar days coming up at the end of April, we hope that all members will get some precious time to spend with friends and family. That’s why your rights on public holidays are important.

Firstly, you have a right to take the day off and can reasonably refuse a request to work on a public holiday.

If you work on public holidays, your agreement or contract will usually include penalty rates to compensate you. Under MEAA’s screen industry agreements, penalties start at double time and a half. In other MEAA workplaces, penalties are dependent on your collective agreement, such as the new agreements covering Marvel stadium and Melbourne Olympic Parks respectively, where public holiday penalty rates were recently won back. If you have questions about what applies to you, talk to your MEAA delegate or contact MEAA’s Member Services Team at members@meaa.org or 1300 65 65 13.

If you’re on a screen production that calls a hiatus over this period, you are better off taking your annual leave (aka ‘holiday pay’) as paid time off rather than saving it until the end of the production. When you take annual leave to cover the hiatus, it means you should also get public holidays paid during that time. It also means that super should be paid on top of your paid leave (super does not need to be paid on top of holiday pay when it is paid as a lump sum at the end of your employment). See here for more on leave entitlements and hiatus.