Please note that the most recent Salary scales is here.

Non-award employment

For many years, numerous ALIA members have worked in organisations which are not regulated by industrial awards or registered agreements. This is known as 'award-free' employment. It is a common feature of private-sector work in most Australian industry sectors.

With the continuing decentralisation and de-regulation of industrial relations and the labour market, the proportion of members working award-free is now rising inexorably. Common-law contracts are more common than previously and the federal government's Australian Workplace Agreements [AWAs]*, together with similar provisions in some states, are now bringing many more middle- and lower-level workers into the type of individual employment arrangements which previously were primarily the province of managerial levels.

The express objective of this policy shift is to further diversify the conditions of employment of workers, both between and within different enterprises. The time-honoured Australian concept of 'comparative wage justice', whereby similar work in different locations attracted basically the same rewards, has declined in importance in recent years, to the extent that its role in Australian wage-fixing is now limited.

In this environment, great care needs to be taken in suggesting 'average' or 'typical' rates for librarians and other information workers. In particular, casual surveys of modest numbers in essentially the same limited element of the broader library and information sector can produce simplistic conclusions which do not represent a true picture of the workforce as a whole which totals around 20 000 people.

Because the basis for wage-fixing in Australia - even in award employment - is moving away from precise rates to a minimum salary approach, this edition recommends minimum rates for non-award employment. Enterprise-level remuneration policies offer the potential for library workers to gain higher rates in many instances. But establishment and observation of firm minima is the strongest mechanism to safeguard non-award employees against undervaluation and exploitation.

* for explanation of Australian Workplace Agreements, see ALIA's booklet Making Australian Workplace Agreements.