Fair Work Australia has ruled in favour of a case brought by the Australian Services Union that argued non-government community sector workers are not paid equally to those in the public sector.
Fair Work Australia has ruled in favour of a case brought by the Australian Services Union that argued non-government community sector workers are not paid equally to those in the public sector.
While there have been calls for pay increases of up to 30 per cent, a decision has still not been made on how much award rates should be increased to, with FWA set to make their final decision in August.
The argument has been a gender pay debate, through which the ASU argued the community sector is largely founded in female staff who are not valued equally to men and more broadly government workers.
FWA today agreed, and said "there is not equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal or comparable value by comparison with workers in state and local government employment."
"We consider gender has been important in creating the gap between pay in the Social and Community Services industry and pay in comparable state and local government employment. And, in order to give effect to the equal remuneration provisions, the proper approach is to attempt to identify the extent to which gender has inhibited wages growth in the SACS industry and to mould a remedy which addresses that situation."
FWA said it has reached some preliminary views of how that will be done, but said adopting greater pay rates would place significant pressure on the not for profit sector.
"Simply adopting the pay rates resulting from the Queensland Equal Remuneration decision is not appropriate. It is desirable, however, that we give the parties the opportunity to make further submissions on the matters," it said.
UnionsWA welcomed the ruling and said the Barnett Government must now act in line with the ruling and allocate additional money for wages for the sector in Thursday's state budget.
"Workers in the community sector have put up with poor pay for far too long because they are all too aware of the importance of the work they do for the community. Their good nature has been taken advantage of by successive state and federal governments for far too long and we welcome this long overdue ruling," Unions WA boss Simone McGurk said.
She said while the state government is engaging with the non profit sector in order to devise new service provision strategies, the fourth sector is at risk of being taken advantage of.
"Despite Mr Barnett's preference to outsource more and more of WA's public services to the non-profit SACS sector, he has repeatedly refused to address the gross under payment of workers in this sector by allocating more money for fair wages. Today's announcement shows just how out of touch the Premier is on the issue of fair and equal pay."
"If this Government wants to palm off its responsibility for service provision to the already over-worked non-profit sector, the least it can do is provide adequate funding that is tied to wages. Any failure to do this will demonstrate that, despite its protestations to the contrary, the Barnett government is handing over public services to the non-profit sector purely as a cost-saving measure and taking advantage of the low paid workers in this sector in the process," said Ms McGurk.
Community sector employment group Community Employers WA has welcomed the decision with cautious optimism.
"We are encouraged that Fair Work Australia has recognised that pay in the social and community services sector is low compared with pay generally" Community Employers WA's executive director, James Lawton said.
"However, we still strongly cautious that any increases that may be awarded by Fair Work Australia, following the next series of submissions and hearings, must be accompanied by a guarantee by the Federal and State Governments to fund these increases" said Mr Lawton.
"If this funding is not provided, there will be a reduction in community services and staff who provide those services. Ultimately, the losers will be the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of our community, which seems unfair" said Mr Lawton.
