Fair Work Commission staff within the RSRT & Minimum Wages Research team of the Tribunal Services Branch may conduct research as part of the annual wage review. The research program for the Annual Wage Review 2012-13 was finalised in a statement on 25 October 2012 following a process where interested parties were invited to submit proposals and participate in consultations.
In undertaking the research program, the RSRT & Minimum Wages Research team consults a Minimum Wage Research Group comprising a chair from the team and representatives nominated by:
In addition to research projects, statistical reporting is also undertaken on a range of data relevant to annual wage reviews. This work will be published separately to the research reports.
In addition to the reports above, in August 2012, staff of the RSRT & Minimum Wages Research Team, Tribunal Services Branch, Fair Work Commission prepared and published mapping documents using the methodology described in Fair Work Australia Research Report 2/2012 – Analysing modern award coverage using the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification 2006: Phase 1 report (PDF).
The documents are available on these pages:
This project will primarily examine national system organisations in which at least one employee has their pay set at the specified award rate. The key objective of the study is to understand the mix or ‘categories’ of such employees and, where possible, their location on award classification scales. A particular focus of the research will be to identify professionals and other employees on higher award classifications whose pay is set at the specified award rate. The study will consist of a quantitative survey of such organisations. Data will be gathered on the size and structure of these organisations, the nature of employment arrangements within these organisations as well as information on bargaining activity within them.
This project will examine how minimum wage increases impact on over award wages and the incentive to bargain. The study will include enterprise case studies, the content analysis of enterprise agreements, and the generation and statistical analysis of workplace survey data. This multi-method approach will be used to investigate the motivations, processes and outcomes of wage setting at the workplace level, and examine the role that the minimum wages increases play in shaping agreement-making and over award wage determination.