Guild modern award battle

THE Pharmacy Guild of Australia has lodged a submission with the Fair Work Commission, in response to a “work value claim” seeking pharmacist pay rises made by union group APESMA as part of the Four Yearly Review of Modern Awards.

The long-running matter has seen APESMA propose increases to the minimum rates of pay for pharmacist classifications covered by the Pharmacy Industry Award 2010, as well as the creation of a new classification of Accredited Pharmacist.

Arguments over the matter have continued since Dec last year, with the latest Guild submission claiming that APESMA will not be able to make out that there has been the requisite “significant net addition” to the work of pharmacists to warrant an increase in minimum wages for work value reasons.

The Guild further argues that the new Accredited Pharmacist classification is “contrived... and not justified on work value reasons”.

Submissions by the Guild include statements from a number of pharmacy proprietors, saying that while work has evolved for pharmacists over the last 20 years “essentially the core tasks have stayed the same”.

The statements note the clinical and administrative efficiencies introduced through technology, and less extemporaneous compounding being conducted in general.

A list of “new services” which forms part of the APESMA submission are “evolutionary in nature and do not represent a significant net addition for work value purposes”, the Guild submission argues.

APESMA’s document cites 25 pharmacists who undertake ‘professional services’ and claims there have been significant net increases in work requirements at all levels, including the introduction of Quality Use of Medicines into the National Medicines Policy in 1999 and increases in undergraduate pharmacy course requirements.