The Federal Government has outlined a $2 billion package that will aim to deliver an ‘historic pay rise’ to 150,000 of Australia’s lowest paid workers in social and community services sector, the majority of which are women.

 

“Workers in this sector have been underpaid for too long because their work was viewed as women’s work. They work in incredibly challenging jobs,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced in a statement.

 

The jobs specified by Ms Gillard include:

  • Working with people with disabilities
  • Counselling families in crisis
  • Running homeless shelters
  • Working with victims of domestic violence or sexual assault.

 

The Government will put a joint submission on equal pay with the Australian Services Union to the independent umpire, Fair Work Australia

 

Of the 150,000 workers in the sector, 120,000 are women. Fair Work Australia has already found that their work is undervalued because of gender considerations.

 

“From a gender equality perspective, this is significant because the vast majority of these workers are women,” Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, said

 

“It is indisputable that the work of the community and services sector, which takes in the health and caring industries, is some of the most important in Australia,” Commissioner Broderick said, “yet it has historically been among the most undervalued, primarily because it is largely undertaken by women.”

 

The case before Fair Work Australia, brought by the Australian Services Union and others for an equal remuneration order in the social and community services industry, is the country’s first equal pay test case under the new legislation.