Health Employees Pharmacists Award and Other Awards (No 2) [2005] NSWIRComm 264

Industrial Relations Commission of New South Wales

CITATION: Health Employees Pharmacists Award and Other Awards (No 2) [2005] NSWIRComm 264

Health Services Union PARTIES: Health Administration Corporation

FILE NUMBER(S): IRC 6920 of 1999, 655 of 2000, 2703 of 2002

CORAM: Walton J Vice-President; Grayson DP; McLeay C

CATCHWORDS: Application for a new award - Employer cross-application for new award - Initial decision covering three occupational streams - Balance of cases stood over pending initial decision - Further significant amendment by which three remaining occupational streams were reviewed - Other elements of union application and employer cross-application not pressed - Increased rates of pay and changed classifications sought for remaining three occupational streams - Wage Fixing Principles - Work Value Principle - Special Case Principle - Partial acceptance by employer of basis of claim in one occupational stream - Agreement as to establishment of special case - Agreement as to significant net addition to work value - Contest as to the extent to which such special case attributes and work value changes should bear upon Commission determination - Claims re other streams opposed in total - Evolution of undergraduate degree as preferred qualification for appointment as cardiac technologist - Appropriateness of alignment with science based groups within the public health system - Approach of determining rates of pay by reference to other classifications to be treated with caution - Need to avoid any notion of comparative wage justice found in past wage fixing regimes - On evidence presented in Laundry case elements of claim more properly fall to be considered under equal remuneration principles rather than special case principles - Parties to address gender equity issues - Difference in rates of pay for security classifications not a basis for special case - Technological change not synonymous with work value change - Existing classification structure in certain cases demonstrably outmoded and inoperative in any legal or practical sense - Union application granted in part and otherwise refused - Matter concluded.