Max Adlam (2)

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Our Work Our Lives Conference

Dili, Timor Leste

1 & 2 September 2011

Max Adlam

Australian Services Union SA NT Branch

We want equal pay & we want it NOW!

I am very proud to have the privilege of organising for the South Australian and

Northern Territory Branch of the Australian Services Union, which represents

members working across many different occupations and industries.

These include local government, the power generation industry, credit unions,

airlines, law firms and many, many more as you may be aware, the ASU also stands

for Active, Strong, and United and thats just what we strive to be.

Today, auspiciously on Australias Equal Pay Day, I am honoured to be here

representing the ASU to tell you about one of our national campaigns which

exemplifies that action, strength & unity ; this is the campaign by union members in

the community sector.

It is a great privilege to be involved in our pay equity case which is an important

element of the campaign for community sector workers a case and campaign which

provides an historic opportunity to finally achieve pay equity in a sector where

women form 85% of the workforce.

You may be aware that Australia has the most sex segregated workforce of the OECD

countries a fact which contributes to the inequality in pay between Australian men

and women workers.

It was last century, in 1972, when the legal principle of equal pay for equal work was

formally established in Australia; a principle wherein a man and a woman doing the

same job should be paid the same amount. And subsequently the principle of equal

pay for work of equal value was also won, though never fully implemented.



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The successful equal pay cases did however have the effect of reducing the pay gap

in Australia between men and women; in effect women moved over time from

getting 75% of what men got paid, to around 82%.

However in the years since the Equal Pay Decisions, we have been unable to achieve

real equal pay in fact, over the last 10 years, the gap has again widened.

The main reason why today there is an 18% gap between the earnings of men &

women in Australia, why it takes women 68 more days than men to earn the

same amount is because those occupations that are dominated by women, are

grossly undervalued.

Work in industries dominated by women especially work with a caring dimension,

or which is seen as womens work, is deemed less skilled and is less valued than

other work.

This cannot and will not continue.

The community sector has within it the highest number of multiple tertiary degree

holders. As earlier stated, 85% of workers in the community sector are women.

Their work in the community sector provides one of the starkest examples of the

shocking undervaluing of the work in industries dominated by women.

For example

A disability support worker who supports, cares for and is the person who ensures

that a person with a disability lives with dignity and is socially included, generally

earns the same amount as a person who stacks supermarket shelves (also valuable

work of course).

A case worker in a youth homeless shelter who provides professional counselling and

support for young people who have experienced such severe abuse or neglect they

cannot not live at home, gets paid just over the Australian minimum wage.

A community worker in an organisation like Dawn House or the Darwin Aboriginal

and Islander Womens Shelter which supports women and children when they are in



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crisis who ensures they do not end up living on the street - generally earns about

$25 000 less than a worker doing similar work in the public sector.

We are continually in awe of the work that community sector workers do, day in day

out, with and for our most vulnerable citizens.

The profound difference their deep commitment and care makes to the lives of those

with whom they work cannot be overestimated.

When we ask community sector workers about why they do the work they do, they

always reply that they do it because they care, because they want to do something

worthwhile that actually makes a difference.

No one has ever said it is for the money or the status.

But that care and commitment can no longer be taken for granted; whilst this

commitment, care and wanting to make a difference are most admirable, this

commitment, care and wanting to make a difference do not buy the groceries and do

not pay the rent.

These workers we talk with cannot and are not continuing to stay in the community

sector because they simply cannot afford to. 52% of workers in the communityservices sector now report that they do not intend to be in the sector in five years

time. The factor most cited for this inability to stay in the sector, is low rates of pay.

77% of managers now also report that low pay is the greatest barrier to retention

and attraction of workers. Community sector organisations now say that they

cannot continue to provide the quality services that they do, that they cannot even

tender to provide some of these services because attraction and retention of skilled

workers is so difficult that they cannot guarantee that they will have a sustainable

workforce able to provide the service into the future.

Alarmingly, clients of the sector now report how hard it is for them to access a

service, build a relationship of trust with a worker, to tell their story to a worker,

often pouring out their heart and soul out about private issues they have

experienced throughout their lives, only to access that service again and find that



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the worker is no longer there, or indeed that the organisation can no longer provide

that service.

This situation cannot continue.

Our community sectors work with some of the most marginalised members of our

community can no longer simply be seen as womens work, as care work, as

something that one should volunteer to do, its value to our society and to our

economy must be recognised.

This is why early last year we launched historic action through our pay equity case

for community sector workers in Fair Work Australia, to apply the new equal pay

principles that Labor introduced after winning government in 2007.

So how did our case come about in legal terms and how is it going?

For all of the reasons I have just spoken about, addressing the workforce issues is

imperative to the securing of ongoing quality service provision to our most

vulnerable citizens.

The sector has a long history of battles for industrial legislation and for industrial

rights; in 1983 the Community Youth Support Schemes (CYSS) case went to the HighCourt to secure award and industrial coverage for the social welfare sector.

In that year, the graduate rate for a community sector worker was established as

equivalent to the wage for an independent school teacher however the gap between

the graduate rate for a community sector worker and for an independent school

teacher is now $20k - $25,000 per annum.

Since 2007, more than 20 inquiries and reports on workforce issues for the

community services sector have been produced by State Governments, Federal

Government, the Productivity Commission, the Not For Profit sector and our Union.

These reports show that there are the same issues in all states and territories around

the community sector issues pertaining to workforce, government funding, lack of

bargaining and a wage gap profound and hard to make up through existing

mechanisms.



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Over the past two years we have also been presented with the new IR system the

F air Work Act 2009 which has presented some challenges as well as some

opportunities.

For example, the corporations power issue had been a big and complex one for the

community services sector under the previous legislation, with so many non-trading

corporations in the sector; likewise, the issues which arose through having a sector

split between Federal and State systems provided challenges to addressing the

workforce issues in a comprehensive manner.

In addition, we had the Award modernisation process to deal with 47 different

industry State and Federal awards being modernised into one modern award the

Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award 2010 .

In April 2008 our ASU Qld Branch created a new State Award to apply to non-trading

corporations. After the Award was made we started the process to adjust the award

rates for pay equity. We used Qld pay equity principles to establish that the work

performed pursuant to the Award was undervalued because of gender.

The key points argued in the Queensland case were that the pay inequities were

gender based because:y the work is seen as care work and care work is seen as extension of womens

domestic role in the home and not properly valued;

y there was a lack of Enterprise Agreements, with most workers employed

under the Award (or minimum) rates; and

y compared to the same or similar jobs in the public sector, local government

and in other industries which do not predominantly employ women, the work

was undervalued.

After lengthy legal argument, in May 2009, we had huge success with wage increases

of between 18 and 37% awarded to Queensland community sector workers; the

biggest ever wage movement for the sector.

The wages are being implemented over a 3 year period and State wage case

decisions also apply. After months of collaborative campaigning the Qld government



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substantially funded the decision, committing $414m to pay the increases. A

massive victory and finally, some recognition for community sector workers who

work at the coalface of need in our community.

The ASU believes community sector workers around the country are not worth any

less than Queensland community sector workers so we turned our minds to other

states and territories, to how we could flow this decision onto other states.

At the same time, the Federal Government indicated that it was very keen to have all

community sector workers covered by the new federal legislation. This gave us an

opportunity to negotiate the terms under which we would agree for all community

sector workers to be referred to the federal system. We negotiated directly with

office of then Deputy PM Julia Gillard resulting in the signing by the parties of the

Heads of Agreement in 2009.

The Heads of Agreement provides

o support for pay equity case, including an agreed set of facts;

o Use of the Qld principles NSW jurisprudence;

o Resourcing and research;

o Qld outcomes are protected;

o Phase in of new rates; and

o Broad recognition of the need for funding.

With the Heads of Agreement in place, the Queensland precedent and s302 of the

new F air Work Act 2009 which allows application for equal remuneration orders, in

March 2010 we launched our national Pay Equity case.

It is, as we knew it would be, a huge, complex and difficult exercise.

16 cases have been run federally previously but none have been won.

We do have new legislation and much support from organisations, various

governments and of courses from workers themselves, but it is cumbersome,

expensive and difficult but, as youve heard, incredibly necessary.

On 3 June 2010 we filed our submissions; these submissions are available for viewing

on our website www.asu-sant.asn.au and all documents in the case are on the Fair

Work Australia website www.fwa.gov.au .



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Hundreds of statements were gathered from experts on pay equity and on the

sector, from workers, from Union officials and from employers. Many other

organisations also made submissions including State Governments, the Womens

Electoral Lobby, various Councils of Social Services, employers, and employer groups.

Inspections in workplaces around the country were organised and conducted in

September last year for the Full Bench hearing the case and all the attendant legal

representatives. Many of our members were witnesses and provided evidence both

in writing and in person about the work they do.

Most of the community employer groups are supportive or concerned mainly about

cost or implementation; an issue for our campaign that we continue to work on

together.

The Australian Industry Group is the most comprehensive employer group in the

case opposed to our application arguing in the first instance that the case is

misconceived. Another AIG argument is that award rates are already properly fixed

and changing rates in a whole sector via an equal remuneration order will distort the

wage relativities. Revealingly, the AIG has also stated that it fears the flow-on impact

of our case to other sectors dominated by women workers, such as those employed

in childcare.

An important campaign strategy has been to make the public aware of our case andto seek public support for state, territory and federal governments to fund any pay

equity ruling that we achieve because without funding, our services will have to cut

back on other things to fund the pay increases and we all know that would be

robbing Penny to pay Pauline.

We are very excited to be able to report that our strategy has met with a great deal

of success and the past few months especially have been very heartening:

In SA, on 10 June 2011 our State Treasurer Jack Snelling at rally on the steps of

Parliament House, announced that the State Government will pay their share of the

increases arising as an outcome of the ASU Pay Equity case.

On 16 June 2011 the Full Bench of Fair Work Australia handed down an interim

decision finding confirming that Community Sector workers are undervalued and

under paid.



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The Australian Federal Government subsequently announced that it will fund its

share of the outcomes of the FWA Pay Equity Case.

Conciliation conferences are now underway discussing the quantum and timing of

pay increases, leading up to a final submissions from the parties, followed by a final

decision from the Full Bench, probably late this year.

But the struggle is far from over.

Unfortunately, elections in some states (NSW, Vic) have seen conservative

governments return to power and the previous state Labor Governments

commitments to funding have been reversed.

We are also still to receive a final commitment for funding from the NT government.

We are sick of community sector workers being taken for granted and doing the

work the government requires to be done at a minimum of 30% (and up to 69%) less

than those same governments pay their own workers.

We will campaign for as long as it takes for our representatives to respect the work

carried out in this sector. We have recently turned out tens of thousands of

community sector workers, employers and supporters around pay equity on our

national days of community sector action. These events were widely and positively

publicised by the media and supported by the broader community.

We have presented petitions with tens of thousands of signatures to state, territory

and federal governments.

We have signed postcards to our Prime Minister; we have taken delegations of

community sector workers to Canberra and we collected pledges from ALP members

about their intentions in relation to funding the cases outcomes post its conclusion.

We continue to grow Union membership and activate workers around their

campaign across the country.

It has not been easy and probably never is going to be easy but we say it is OUR time.

It is OUR turn. This is the time when community sector work gets valued. This is

when pay equity for women is finally turned around and achieved.

This is an exciting point in our campaign for pay equity and its vital that we continue

to keep the energy going and the pressure on for a just decision.



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Further submissions to FWA are scheduled for 24-26 October 2011 and we hope for a

decision from the Full Bench by the end of this year.

However, even once we have a decision and even after we have sorted out the

wrinkles of program funding and implemented the wage increases involved, we will

need to address the ongoing challenges (Maintenance of pay relativities, workforce

development, OH&S) which confront the community sector in Australia.

But what we do know is that by being active, strong and united , we CAN make a

difference.

Thank you.

Max Adlam (2)

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