Focus on minimum award rates and addressing gender undervaluation – which sectors are next?

The 2025 Federal Election saw the Labor Government re-elected without significant industrial relations reform being on the agenda. However, given the scale of the victory and changes to the Senate, the new Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Amanda Rishworth, may seize the opportunity to push for further reforms. This will certainly include a continued focus on raising minimum wages. In its submission to the 2024-25 Annual Wage Review, the Australian Labor Party recommended that the Fair Work Commission (FWC) ‘award an economically sustainable real wage increase to Australia’s award workers’.¹ Advocating and legislating for increases to award minimum rates are likely to be a key priority for the re-elected Albanese Government. 

The Fair Work Commission: current and completed work

In the background, in addition to Annual Wage Reviews, minimum award rates of pay are an ongoing focus of the FWC – including in relation to addressing gender-based undervaluation.

Following a decision by an Expert Panel on 16 April 2025, the FWC’s ‘Gender-based Undervaluation – Priority Awards’ review is moving steadily through the five identified priority awards. In addition, the FWC's broader process for work value reviews of minimum rates in awards (in aged care and for nurses outside of aged care), is progressing at a significant pace.

This current review of minimum rates in ‘feminised’ occupations commenced in mid-2024. It was supported by changes to the Fair Work Act that now require the FWC to specifically consider whether minimum award rates had been impacted by gender-based assumptions of the value of work when exercising powers under the minimum wage objective and modern award objective.  In its 2023-24 Annual Wage Review decision, the FWC confirmed that:

• Ensuring equal remuneration for work of equal or comparable value and eliminating gender-based undervaluation are essential means to achieve gender equality in the workplace.
• Gender undervaluation in the award context refers to situations where minimum rates of pay have been established based on an undervaluation of the relevant work due to gender-related reasons.
• The inclusion of these considerations in the Fair Work Act as part of the mandatory gender equality objective in the minimum wages review necessitates evaluating whether the existing National Minimum Wage and modern award minimum wage rates are appropriately valued and free from gender bias.

The FWC then set about identifying five awards as a priority for review.  As part of its submissions, the ACTU asked the FWC to give priority to reviewing minimum rates for clothing retail assistants and retail managers covered by the General Retail Industry Award 2020. Evidence presented to the FWC indicated that female employees constituted 85.5% and 80.9% of these occupations respectively. However, the retail sector was not considered to be an immediate priority. The Flight Attendants’ Association of Australia (FAAA) submitted that the Aircraft Cabin Crew Award 2020 should be given priority on the grounds that it had ‘not been the subject of work value consideration for many decades, contains low rates of pay, arose from a previous history of gender-based award coverage, and covers a workforce which is female-dominated’. This request for priority was also rejected by the FWC because ‘modern award reliance’ was not high in that sector. However, the FWC stated that cabin crew, amongst other occupations, may be given further consideration once the priority awards were dealt with.

The FWC ultimately prioritised occupations in five awards for consideration:

• the Pharmacy Industry Award 2020 – all pharmacist classifications;
• the Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020 – all health professional, medical technical, and dental assistant roles;
• the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 – social and community services, home care, and family day care workers;
• the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Practitioners and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services Award 2020 – dental assistant and dental/oral therapist classifications; and
• the Children’s Services Award 2010 – Children’s Services Employees.

The Expert Panel is tasked with reviewing modern award classifications and minimum wage rates on work value grounds to address potential gender-based undervaluation. In a decision issued on 16 April 2025, it was determined that classifications under each of the five awards had been subject to gender-based undervaluation, justifying variations to the modern award minimum wage rates for each category of employees. The Expert Panel initially decided to provide actual increase in relation to one award and determined to increase minimum rates in the Pharmacy Industry Award 2020 by 14.1%, to be implemented in three phases from 30 June 2025, 30 June 2026, and 30 June 2027. The Expert Panel also expressed ‘provisional views’ relating to variations it thought appropriate to remedy gender-based undervaluation in the remaining four priority awards. Further hearings and conferences are now beginning to be listed for those awards.

The Fair Work Commission: the future – retail, cabin crew

In considering which awards would be given priority the FWC examined data around highly feminised occupations and identified the awards that applied. Based on that data, outside the five priority awards selected the General Retail Industry Award 2020 is clearly the most significant. It is the largest modern award by employee coverage. Other awards considered but ultimately not determined to be a priority were the Aircraft Cabin Crew Award 2020, the Legal Services Award 2020, Animal Care and Veterinary Services Award 2020, and the Hair and Beauty Industry Award 2020.

The FWC has already conducted work value reviews for teachers, the aged care sector, and has commenced proceedings for nurses and midwives employed outside the aged care sector. Significant increases in rates, ranging up to 30% or more, have been determined or proposed for most classifications under these awards, reinforcing the FWC’s approach to benchmarking minimum rates of pay and correcting historical gender-based undervaluation.

Taking into account the data around the gender composition of employees covered by the General Retail Industry Award 2020, and the Aircraft Cabin Crew Award 2020, it is likely that these two awards will be next on the FWC’s agenda.

An increase in minimum rates could have a significant impact on labour costs, and ultimately the viability of employers in the retail sector. It will be most dramatic for smaller employers who pay at or close to minimum award rates, or for businesses where annual increases in enterprise agreement rates are linked to increases in award rates.  Similarly, for cabin crew there may not be widespread modern award ‘reliance’, but the margin between enterprise agreement rates of pay and the award rates is universally slim.

We have ongoing involvement for clients in the Priority Awards and Nurses Award matters. We would be happy to spend some time taking you through the complicated history of these proceedings, the role of the Commission in eliminating gender-based undervaluation, and the implications for businesses if the awards that cover your employees become subject to a work value review.