Gender Undervaluation — Pharmacy Industry Award 2010
[2024] FWCFB 363
•6 SEPTEMBER 2024
| [2024] FWCFB 363 |
| FAIR WORK COMMISSION |
| STATEMENT |
Fair Work Act 2009
s.157 — FWC may vary etc. modern awards if necessary to achieve modern awards objective
Gender Undervaluation — Pharmacy Industry Award 2010
(AM2024/19)
| JUSTICE HATCHER, PRESIDENT | SYDNEY, 6 SEPTEMBER 2024 |
Gender undervaluation – priority awards review – Commission’s own motion – Pharmacy Industry Award 2020 – publication of data profile research.
In this year’s Annual Wage Review 2023–24 decision[1] (AWR 2024 decision), the Expert Panel determined that Pharmacists covered by the Pharmacy Industry Award 2020 (Pharmacy Award) were a priority occupation to be considered in relation to eliminating potential gender undervaluation in modern award minimum rates of pay.
Pharmacists were determined to be a priority occupation independent of the gender pay inequity research project conducted by the Commission in 2023–24. Pharmacists were not dealt with in this project because they did not meet the three priority criteria for inclusion, which required the relevant occupation to be:
large (containing over 10,000 people);
highly feminised (over 80% female); and
in feminised industries (over 60% female).
Notwithstanding this, pharmacists covered by the Pharmacy Award were considered by the Expert Panel in the AWR 2024 decision to be a priority occupation because they had been identified in a 2018 Full Bench decision as an occupation not properly aligned with the C1 rate in the metal industry framework for undergraduate degree-qualified employees, with this work value issue having gender implications.
As Pharmacists were not included in the research project, the Commission has not to date published any data about their characteristics, including gender. Staff of the Commission have now prepared a Data profile—Pharmacists and the Pharmacy Industry Award 2020 report which will be published on the Gender undervaluation – priority awards review webpage. The data profile uses microdata from the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours (May 2023) and data from the ABS Census (August 2021) to provide information on pharmacists covered by the Pharmacy Award.
A Statement and Amended Directions[2] were issued in relation to this matter on 16 August 2024. Parties are invited to comment on the data profile in any submissions filed in accordance with the directions.
PRESIDENT
[1] [2024] FWCFB 3500 [121]–[123].
[2] [2024] FWCFB 345.
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