By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Which award covers shopfitting staff in Australia?
The Joinery and Building Trades Award 2020 (MA000029) is the award that covers shopfitting businesses across Australia, according to the Fair Work Ombudsman. It applies to employers of staff doing joinery work, shopfitting, prefabricated building, stonemasonry, or glass and glazing contracting, as set out in the Joinery and Building Trades Award 2020. For a shopfitter running a workshop and installing fit-outs on site, this award sets the base for pay and conditions across the crew, not the Building and Construction Award.
Many owners assume that because the final install happens on a building site, inside a retail or hospitality tenancy, the construction award must apply. The Fair Work Ombudsman's guide to award coverage for joiners and cabinet makers explains that the Building and Construction Award covers businesses constructing, altering or installing woodwork such as cabinetry in a construction site work environment, but does not cover businesses doing shopfitting. Getting that wrong does not stay contained to one payslip. It flows into every quote, progress claim and variation that includes labour, because the classification sits underneath all of it.
What counts as shopfitting work under this award?
The award itself describes shopfitting as the manufacture, installation, alteration or repair of shopfronts, showcases, partitions and exhibitors' stands, along with installing or altering interior fittings and fixtures in or on a building. For a shopfitter who turns shop drawings into joinery in the workshop, then installs it into a retail or hospitality fit-out, this is the work the award is built to cover.
The Joinery Award summary lists shopfitters alongside joinery shop staff, stair builders working off site, factory and general hands, machine operators, carpenters, glaziers and glass cutters as roles the award covers. It also sets out who it does not cover, including businesses that manufacture glass from raw materials, in-built furniture manufacturers making kitchen cabinets or wardrobes, door and window frame manufacturers, and businesses installing cabinetry in an on-site construction environment rather than doing shopfitting. A shopfitter who also runs a sideline in home joinery, works to a landlord's tenancy rules or a builder's programme inside a commercial fit-out, or buys components from an outside supplier, should check which part of the business each role actually sits in.
Does coverage change if the crew work off site or across states?
Coverage can sit in layers, so a shopfitter with crew moving between the workshop, a site, and sometimes another state should check for a state based award on top of the national one, rather than assuming a single rule covers the whole business. The national Joinery and Building Trades Award 2020 applies throughout Australia, but some states run their own instruments alongside it for particular work patterns.
In Western Australia, for example, the Building Trades and Labourers (General) Award summary says that award applies to building trades workers who are not working on site, such as those working in shops or factories, while trainee pay rates are still drawn from the national joinery award. A shopfitter whose crew splits time between the workshop and site, including after hours install work, should treat this as a question to check for each role rather than a rule that applies the same way to everyone on the team.
Where do shopfitting businesses usually get this wrong?
Most shopfitting businesses set award classifications once, when the business was small, and rarely revisit them as the crew grows, a new trade is added, or the mix of work shifts from pure workshop joinery into more on-site install and after hours work. A project manager might be added, a casual brought on for a tight programme deadline, or a subbie engaged to fix a defect after handover, without anyone checking whether the classification still fits the work.
The risk is not limited to one payslip. The same mistake can sit underneath every progress claim and every variation that includes labour, often for a long stretch before anyone notices, because the business is working from what was decided years ago rather than from what the crew is doing now.
How can you keep award coverage and pay right as the crew grows?
The real answer sits in your own job and payroll data, not in memory of a decision the business made when it started out. Looking at what each person on the crew actually does, week to week, against the classifications in the award, is the only way to know pay is matching the work rather than resting on an old assumption.
This is where data first thinking matters. Instead of reviewing award coverage once a year or after a complaint, a shopfitter can read rostering and job data against pay obligations as the business runs, not after the fact. AI agents, software that does a job the way you would, using your crew's actual working patterns and your pay rules, can be set up to flag when a role, a site pattern or a new hire no longer matches the classification on file. Another AI agent can carry the record keeping that the award and Fair Work expect, pulling the detail from job and time data instead of someone rebuilding it from memory at the end of the quarter. None of this replaces checking the current award yourself. It means the checking starts from real records instead of a guess.
This is general information, not legal, tax or employment advice. Check your own situation with the body named here or a qualified adviser.
Where can you check the current rules?
- Joinery and Building Trades Award 2020 (MA000029): the full award text and its coverage clauses for shopfitting, joinery and related trades, published by the Fair Work Ombudsman.
- Award coverage for joiners and cabinet makers: the Fair Work Ombudsman's plain language guide to which businesses the Joinery Award covers and which it does not.
- Joinery Award summary (MA000029): a summary of who is covered, including shopfitters, and who is excluded.
- Building Trades and Labourers (General) Award summary: Western Australia's state based award and how it works alongside the national joinery award.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Greg Allan's Data First Coaching starts from a shopfitting business's own job, crew and payroll data through the Trade Business Intelligence, not from a general description of the business given by the owner. For a question about award coverage, that means looking at how the crew's actual work, split between workshop joinery and on-site install, lines up with how each role is classified and paid, and where that match may have drifted as the business grew. The how of setting that up, agent by agent, is worked through inside the Academy, with members, because the Trade Business Intelligence is powered by every member, for every member, and the Academy is for owners who are open minded, innovative and willing to share what they learn.
