Croupiers made redundant by Crown Perth in April 2026 will have their severance calculated without the weekend penalty rates paid for ordinary hours, after the Fair Work Commission rejected the United Workers’ Union’s construction of the casino’s enterprise agreement.
The dispute was arbitrated under s.739 of the Fair Work Act 2009 and clause 3.1 of the Crown Perth & UWU Hospitality Enterprise Agreement 2023, the agreement’s dispute resolution term. The parties agreed the Commission had jurisdiction to arbitrate and settled on three questions: the meaning of Ordinary Rate of Pay in clause 5.6.3(1), and whether that term captures the penalty rates in clauses 7.4(2) and 7.4(3). Deputy President Beaumont issued the decision in Perth on 26 August 2026.
Burswood Resort (Management) Limited, trading as Crown Perth, cut several positions in the Croupier/Dealer classification in April 2026, after a period of consultation in mid-March 2026. The company had told employees during that consultation that only ‘Schedule 3’ benefits would be counted, with other penalties and allowances left out of the redundancy calculation. Dismissals took effect on or around 19 April 2026, and the amounts paid fell short of what some employees had anticipated.
Clause 5.6.3(1) sets severance by applying the table in clause 5.6.3(2) to the employee’s Ordinary Rate of Pay. Under clause 7.4(2), ordinary hours worked between 7pm Friday and midnight Saturday attract 150 per cent of the Base Rate of Pay; under clause 7.4(3), ordinary hours between midnight Saturday and midnight Sunday attract 200 per cent. Neither of those penalties is set out in Schedule 3.
“Ordinary Rate of Pay” or “Weekly Pay” means the applicable rate of pay an Employee would regularly and ordinarily earn in a day or a week, which may include the relevant allowances, penalties and other financial benefits prescribed in Schedule 3 of the Agreement.
that the definition has two limbs, and that the first limb, the pay an employee would “regularly and ordinarily earn”, is the source of the entitlement. The words “may include” introduced a non-exhaustive guide, so the rate was “about the whole pay an employee may earn for their ordinary hours of work”, including penalties found in the body of the agreement.
that the rate is worked out only by reference to the set of allowances, penalties and financial benefits listed in Schedule 3, and that “may” reflects that an employee could be, but is not guaranteed to be, entitled to one or more of them, giving the examples of a split shift allowance and compensation for performing a service role.
that the term “is calculated based on the rate of pay an employee would regularly and ordinarily earn in a day or a week including only the prescribed set of allowances, penalties and financial benefits contained in Schedule 3”. The answers to the two questions about clauses 7.4(2) and 7.4(3) were both “no”.
The decision held that the union’s reading gave primacy to the independent clause and left no work for the dependent clause beginning “which may include”. Where the agreement intends wages to be paid with all higher rates and additional benefits, the Deputy President observed, it says so in terms, pointing to clause 5.1.1(4) on payment in lieu of notice and clause 5.6.2(3) on transfer to a lower paid classification, both of which refer to allowances, loadings and penalties. Schedule 3 was found to be “drafted to capture some (but not all) payments made to employees who perform work outside normal business hours”.
Both parties agreed there was no need to resort to extrinsic evidence, and the Deputy President found no ambiguity, turning to the predecessor 2022 Agreement only to clarify typographical cross-referencing errors carried into the 2023 Agreement.
Evidence that a People and Culture manager had adjusted a voluntary redundancy payment to include penalties and allowances after the union intervened was not treated as probative of a common understanding, the Deputy President citing the Full Bench in Australian Workers’ Union v Orica Australia Pty Ltd on the limits of post-agreement conduct.
A then UWU Lead Organiser for the Casinos Portfolio in Western Australia gave evidence about the drafting meetings for the 2023 Agreement, including a tracked change by the company’s then Group Head of Industrial Relations adding “or ‘Weekly Rate of Pay’” to the definition, with the comment “Include weekly pay definition in this clause to provide certainty”.
At a glance
- Parties: United Workers’ Union v Burswood Resort (Management) Limited trading as Crown Perth (C2026/6945)
- Citation: [2026] FWC 3261, Deputy President Beaumont, Perth, 26 August 2026
- Section: s.739, Fair Work Act 2009; clauses 1.10, 5.6.3(1), 7.4(2) and 7.4(3) of the Crown Perth & UWU Hospitality Enterprise Agreement 2023
- Outcome: Ordinary Rate of Pay includes only the allowances, penalties and financial benefits prescribed in Schedule 3; weekend penalties excluded from redundancy pay
- Who it affects: Employees covered by the 2023 Agreement, including the Croupier/Dealer classification
The answers given were confined to the questions the parties agreed to put. The Deputy President also observed, without deciding, that the same words appear in lower case at subclauses 4.3.4(7), 7.7(4), 7.8.1(3) and 7.8.1(4), and that applying this construction to the casual loading table in subclause 4.3.4(7) would arguably produce an inconsistency. Because the Commission’s role under a dispute settlement term is in the nature of private arbitration, those remarks were made by way of observation only.
Source: [2026] FWC 3261
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