Wage gap at heart of 'historic' Australian case

From the Sydney Morning Herald Sunday:

A group of unions led by the Australian Services Union is fighting "an historic pay equity" for women who work in the non-government social and community sector. They argue the women should be paid the same amount as men with similar qualifications.

The case, which began in Sydney last week, represents the first time federal workplace laws introduced by the current government have been used in an attempt to close the wage gap between men and women.

According to the newspaper, the unions want to apply a set of criteria used by the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission in the case to prove that the social and community services sector is undervalued because it is dominated by women.

Under this test, they must prove that the non-government community sector workforce is highly feminised, has high levels of part-time and casual work, low unionization, low levels of enterprise bargaining, small workplaces and limited career opportunities.

"If successful, the case would see hundreds of thousands of disability workers, youth workers, migrant workers and others receive a 30-per-cent pay rise, and a flood of follow-up cases across the country," the article states.

Federal and state governments, largely responsible for paying the workers, could be paying more than $1 billion extra a year.

''Hundreds of women are waiting for this judgment, waiting to decide whether they want to stay in the job or not,'' said Maree McDermott,  a non-profit domestic violence support service.

Looming over proceedings is the reluctance of both state and federal governments to fund any wage increase, even if the case is successful, the article states.