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Equal Pay Campaign starts
12 March 2010
Equal Pay Campaign starts with launch of national test case for disability, social and community workers.
The newly-formed Equal Pay Alliance will today call on all political parties and employers to properly value women's work and close the 17% wage gap between men and women once and for all, as it launches a national equal pay campaign in Canberra.
"The pay gap is still so big that on average Australian women have to work 63 days more a year just to earn the same income. Over a lifetime, women end up earning on average about $1 million less than men," said ACTU President Sharan Burrow.
The Equal Pay Alliance includes 150 organisations across business, unions and the community.
As part of the campaign, the Alliance is supporting a national test case to secure fairer pay rates for social and community sector workers who look after the homeless, the disabled, refugees, domestic violence victims, children at risk, the elderly and other vulnerable people in our society.
"This is difficult and demanding work, yet this female-dominated industry is one of the lowest paid in Australia because it has been historically viewed as 'women's work'," said Linda White, Assistant National Secretary of the Australian Services Union. "The skills and professional judgement of these workers deserve to be recognised and properly valued."
"Today (11 March) we lodge our case in Fair Work Australia. It is the first step in getting disability and community services workers the pay they deserve and the pay they are worth", said Natalie Bradbury, Assistant National Secretary of the Health Services Union.
The case will be the first to test the new pay equity provisions of the Fair Work Act which acknowledge the right of men and women to be paid equally for work of comparative value. If successful, the case will help establish an equal pay standard for other industries.
The Equal Pay Alliance is also calling for other measures to adopted to value women's work and help close the pay gap, including:
- More flexibility in rostered hours and access to decent part-time jobs
- Accessible, affordable, good quality out-of-school care and childcare
- Improved reporting and auditing of equal pay and equal opportunity
- Pay equity cases to value and properly fund wages for work traditionally carried out by women
- More opportunities to build skills and participate in the workforce, especially for mothers and older women
- Superannuation gap to be addressed
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