A landmark in the long campaign for women's wage justice

There should be no dispute in the 21st century about the legitimacy of delivering equal remuneration to all workers, writes John Spoehr in the Adelaide Review. More than a century after the famous ‘Harvester Judgement’ of HB Higgins laid the foundation for the basic wage in Australia, much remains to be done to achieve wage justice for hundreds of thousands of women in low paid occupations in the community services and aged care sectors. In his landmark 1907 case Higgins established the family wage – a wage deemed sufficient for a male worker to support his wife and children. It was set at a modest 7 shillings a day, an increase of 27 percent from 6 shillings. While the landmark judgement helped to improve the standard of living of millions of Australians over time, the male breadwinner model it was based on entrenched gender wage inequality. The law allowed employers to pay women just 54 per cent of the basic wage! This injustice prevailed for decades until the pressures of the Second World War on male labour supply forced employers to offer higher wages to attract women into industries central to the war effort. Some of the gains made during the war were secured in 1950 when women’s wages were increased to 75 per cent of the male basic wage. The rising influence of the women’s movement accelerated the campaign for gender wage equality during the 1960s. An ACTU test case to eliminate the 25 per cent wage differential between men and women was launched in 1969. The principle that women be paid the same as men for doing the same work was established where they work alongside each other. While female rates of pay were abolished gender segregation in employment continued to sustain wage inequality between men and women, particularly in occupations and sectors where women are over-represented like community services and aged care. Regarded as ‘women’s work’, occupations in the sector have been historically undervalued relative to those that dominated by men. Gender wage inequalities are also the legacy of variations in wages and conditions between the government and non-government sectors. This is most pronounced in the non-government community services and aged care sectors where wages are significantly below those available for the same jobs in local and state government. Tackling these differentials is central to making further inroads into gender wage inequality in the 21st century - a central objectives of the union movements current case before Fair Work Australia which is seeking equal remuneration for workers in the non-government social, community and disability services sectors in Australia. The reality is that women make up the overwhelming majority of employees in these sectors, where rates of pay remain relatively low and over-award payments rare. In what is likely to prove a major landmark equal pay decision, Fair Work Australia found that for employees in the non-government social and community services sector, “there is not equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value by comparison with state and local government employment”. Fair Work Australia Commissioners acknowledged that employees in the government sector are likely to have been the beneficiary of “...being part of a larger negotiating bloc which is not predominantly female, and which has more bargaining power than some of its predominantly female constituent groups”. These are significant conclusions, opening the door to a remedy for gender wage inequalities that persist in the social and community services sector. While Fair Work Australia hasn’t laid down the principles to guide this yet, it looks like it will in the near future. It has invited submissions on how equal remuneration might be applied in the sector, providing oxygen for a campaign that appears set to deliver better wage outcomes for all who work in the non-government social and community services workers. Given the dependence of the non-government social and community services sector on government funding, all agree that the successful application of equal remuneration principles will require an increase in government funding to most NGOs. This will become increasingly important as other pressures on the sector mount, particularly the effects of population and workforce ageing on service delivery and the capacity of the sector to attract and retain employees in a more competitive labour market. There should be no dispute in the 21st century about the legitimacy of delivering equal remuneration to workers in the non-government social and community services sector for doing work that is the same as their counterparts in the government sector. Advances on this front will not only help to overcome long standing gender wage inequalities but also provide greater recognition of the value of the work of the sector as a whole. Ultimately this will help to ensure that it is funded adequately to continue to deliver the complex and sophisticated range of services that are demanded of it. First Published in the Adelaide Review   Image: joergh / flick