Fair Pay Agreements

These Agreements will be a set of occupation and sector-specific minimum employment standards, such as wages, redundancy, or overtime. They will be agreed through bargaining between affected workers and employers, and will then become legal requirements in that sector.

Fair Pay Agreements 

In October 2019, the Government released a discussion paper that sought feedback on a range of options for the design of a Fair Pay Agreements system. The consultation closed on 27 November 2019.

• Learn more about the consultation

Next steps

Feedback from the consultation will inform the Government’s decisions on a detailed Fair Pay Agreement system.

Fair Pay Agreement Working Group

A Fair Pay Agreement Working Group was set up in June 2018 to make recommendations on the design of a sector-level bargaining system. It was chaired by Rt Hon Jim Bolger ONZ.

The Working Group looked at:

• the criteria and process to initiate bargaining on a Fair Pay Agreement
• how bargaining participants will be identified and selected
• what Fair Pay Agreements should cover in terms of scope
• bargaining rules and dispute resolution processes, and ratification and enforcement of Fair Pay Agreements.

The Working Group provided its recommendations to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety in December 2018. 

Read the Fair Pay Agreement Working Group report [PDF, 10 MB]

Read the Minister's announcement on the release of the Working Group's report(external link)

Related documents

Cabinet paper to establish the Fair Pay Agreement Working Group [PDF, 1 MB]

Terms of Reference for the Fair Pay Agreement Working Group [PDF, 159 KB]

Minister's announcement on the establishment of the Working Group(external link)