Plumbing Apprentices Required To Live Away From Home To Attend Block Training

The Plumbing and Fire Sprinklers Award 2020 (the Award), provides the minimum wage and employment entitlements for employees in the plumbing industry. One area that we receive a number of queries is when an apprentice travels away from the workplace to attend block release training – who is required to pay for the accommodation and meals?

Due to the complexities of this query, MPAQ has sought further information from the Fair Work Ombudsman to obtain their interpretation on this provision within the Award.

The following is a summary of the Fair Work Ombudsman’s interpretation:

• Clause 13.3 Travel expenses during block release training – sprinkler fitters
  • An Employer is only required to arrange return travel to and from block release training and suitable accommodation at no cost to an employee who is:
    • doing a sprinkler fitting apprenticeship, and
    • for whom it is not reasonable to expect the employee to travel to and from their house to block release training.

• Clause 21.10 Expense-related allowances – Living away from home – distant work
  • An employee is entitled to living away from home allowances when employed on a job or construction work at such a distance from their usual place of residence that the employee cannot reasonably return to that place each night.
    • Accordingly, the FWO has deemed that block release training is not considered a job or construction work.

Although this interpretation is favourable to employers, it is important to note that the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) is not a Court, Commission, or Tribunal therefore if a specific query was to be heard in front of a Court, Commission, or Tribunal, the determined outcome may be different to the above interpretation.

In light of FWO interpretation, MPAQ’s historical interpretation was that the block release training is part of working on a ‘job’ and therefore the responsibility is with the employer to provide reasonable board and lodging or pay the living away from home allowance in accordance with clause 21.10(c) which currently provides for:

The employer will either:

• Provide the worker with reasonable board and lodging; or
• Pay an allowance of $612.43 per week of 7 days (or $87.55 per day for broken parts of the week) and such allowance is not wages.

As this area has not been defined within a Court, Commission or Tribunal, an Employer may choose to adopt FWO interpretation and in doing so may bring some risk further down the track if a Court, Commission, or Tribunal determination is made that differs to the FWO interpretation.

Additionally, an Apprentice can apply for the Travel and Accommodation Allowance incentive if they are required to travel more than 100km from their home to attend block release training - Travel and accommodation allowance | Education and training | Queensland Government (www.qld.gov.au). This incentive is only available to apprentices so employers are encouraged to assist their apprentice to apply for this incentive.

For further information, please contact our MPAQ Advisory team on 07 3273 0800.