Equal pay decision means nothing without a fight

Whoever said that battles are won in the street, not the courtroom, had sage advice for community sector workers. More than a year after a significant legal victory, we’re still fighting for equal pay.

Last year, Fair Work Australia (now the Fair Work Commission) recognised that workers in the community sector are paid considerably less for doing the same work as workers in other sectors like government and health. It was a historic decision. The commission accepted that the wage disparity was due to the fact that most community sector workers are women.

The win came on the back of a five year campaign that drew in thousands of workers. We rallied, we argued, we recruited to the union (Australian Services Union) and we made equal pay an issue that wouldn’t go away. Our campaign undid the idea that community workers are in the job for an emotional reward and should be grateful for whatever we get. The ASU grew at a rate that defied the trend in union membership. It became relevant to many workers for the first time because it became a union that fought.

However, our fight is far from over. The legal decision, significant as it was, left a loophole, a way out for community sector bosses. The wording means that community sector agencies can try to absorb extra funding that is supposed to pay for our wage increases.

Furthermore, workers in the sector are currently being transitioned to a “modern” award as part of the award “modernisation” process started by the Labor government in 2008. A number of agencies are using this as a chance to reclassify workers at lower levels. Lower classifications will mean workers lose thousands over the phase-in period set down by the commission’s equal pay decision.

All of this will chip away at the pay and conditions of workers who are currently paid above award rates and setting the standard for the sector. This, in turn, will lower pay and conditions for everyone.

What makes these attacks particularly loathsome is that they are coming from the very agencies that once claimed to be partners in the fight for equal pay. In the lead-up to the court case, most community sector bosses signed on as supporters of equal pay. They wrote letters to politicians, and some even let workers attend the street rallies in paid time.

But that was when an equal pay campaign meant a fight with government for more funding for the sector. That’s a fight that community workers and our union have largely won. Now the bosses have changed their tune. Equal pay for community workers suddenly matters less than padding the bottom line of the organisations they work for with the extra funding meant for wages.

However, it’s not all bad news; the struggle for equal pay is continuing in the workplace. ASU members at the Tenants Union of Victoria took strike action and set an important precedent for an enterprise bargaining clause to protect equal pay and prevent the absorption of extra funding. Workers at Mind Australia have also taken industrial action. They are right now in the middle of a battle for an enterprise agreement that preserves the benefits of the equal pay decision as well as their existing conditions. These struggles serve as important examples and lessons for all of us.

As long as our bosses continue their fight, ours too does not end, not until every last cent of equal pay is in our pockets, not theirs.