Pay Secrecy in our industry
In this series, we’ll discuss important rights that affect our industry, starting with the long-held problem of not discussing our salary and remuneration. The Fair Work Act was recently amended to allow greater transparency for employees who want to discuss their salaries with others. The more we work together as architects to provide information to each other, the more we help our industry thrive by ensuring we have salaries that reflect our hard work.
For any employment contract entered into on or after the 7th December 2022, Section 333B in the Fair Work Act 2009 (VIC) states:
(1) An employee may disclose, or not disclose, any of the following information to any other person:
(a) the employee’s remuneration;
(b) any terms and conditions of the employee’s employment that are reasonably necessary to determine remuneration outcomes.
Prohibiting pay secrecy
333B Employees not subject to pay secrecy
Example: A condition of an employee’s employment that may be reasonably necessary to determine remuneration outcomes includes the number of hours that the employee works.
In layman’s terms, this means:
Employees and future employees have the right to:
Share (or not share) information about:
- their pay
- their employment terms and conditions that would be needed to work out their pay, such as their hours of work
Employees can’t be forced to give this information to another employee if they don’t want to.
Employees can also exercise these rights even after they leave their employment.
Architects shouldn't compete with each other; we should work together to support our industry.
For more information, go to fairwork.gov.au