By Yasmin Noone

Aged care unions could use yesterday’s historic Fair Work Australia (FWA) equal remuneration decision, which awarded social and community services (SACS) workers with a 19 to 41 per cent wage increase, to secure substantial pay rises for their own members, an industrial relations expert said.

The test case, lodged by the Australian Services Union (ASU) in 2010 on behalf of its members and a range of other unions including United Voice, sought to address the gender-based undervaluation of the community services sector and deliver pay increases for workers performing “caring duties”.

According to Tim Longwill, partner at McCullough Robertson Lawyers, when the FWA handed down a decision in favour of the applicant yesterday, it set a legal precedent for other unions to use as a basis for equal remuneration orders of their own. 

For example, he said, the case could be used by aged care unions or other representative groups to reap similar increases for the female-dominated, low-paid residential and community care workforce.

“From the aged care perspective, aged care workers have, to-date, hit the same hurdle as SACS workers [in achieving wage increases] because the sector is primarily government-funded and providers think they won’t be able to provide an increase in wages without an increase in government support," Mr Longwill said.

“There is no reason why the ANF [Australian Nursing Federation] or United Voice couldn’t run a similar case in the aged care sector and achieve a similar result

“There’s no reason why this [decision] wouldn’t flow onto other sectors where similar [caring] work is being done and there is a similar undervaluing of work performed [on the basis of gender equity].”

“It’s about identifying those skills that are normally undervalued [like caring] and then applying the FWA formula to other areas.”

Mr Longwill said the case could also have other workforce and financial impacts on the aged care sector.

For example, he said, higher SACS wages could be the deciding factor which motivates a personal care worker, who could have worked in a residential aged care facility, to take up a position with disability services.

It could create "a two-tier market of people who can work in the aged care sector but will go into [other community-based jobs] because the market pays a lot more".

“There will also be big providers…who will be impacted by this decision without a doubt because the increase in SACS wages will impact on their bottom line [which could then impact on the aged care arm of their organisation]."

He also warned the decision could influence informal carers, currently paid a government pension.

“Why should they be paid significantly less for the work they do when others [are getting more] for the same work?”

Assistant national secretary of United Voice, Sue Lines, agreed that the union could potentially use the FWA test case to increase the wages of residential and community care workers.

However, she said, the union hopes to achieve pay rises for aged care workers through aged care reform and sector consultation. 

“Our aged care wages campaign is different [to the SACS campaign],” Ms Lines said.

“We really do want the industry to sit down with government on wages and the opportunity to do that is through the National Aged Care Alliance (NACA) and aged care reform.”

Ms Lines said the union was happy with the wage increases secured through yesterday’s FWA ruling.

But, United Voice disagreed with the eight-year implementation timeline decided upon by the full bench because it is two years longer than that  recommended by the ASU, as stated in its joint submission with the federal government.

“It’s a bit of a sting in the tail. Why, in 2012, in a country as wealthy as Australia, are we still struggling to get equal pay for women?

“Why an extra two years when the federal government and employers were okay with the time frame the union put forward?

“I can’t see any reason why FWA would make women [SACS workers] wait another two years when they are already low paid.”

Mr Longwill interpreted FWA’s reason for extending the implementation period, stating that employers and governments simply needed more time to factor wage increases into their financial plans.

“The underpinning concern was the affordability of providing the federal government and states time to come up with the money,” he said.

“But, there was also a realisation that there’s non-government providers who are going to have to re-jig themselves as well.

“These are very low or no-profit [providers] so these organisations are going to have to reconfigure themselves in order to provide services [in the future because of increased wages] or cut services and staff.

“So part of the reason to extend the time-frame is to give providers [and governments] time to get sorted.”

ASU’s assistant national secretary, Linda White, said the decision was a crucial step forward in closing the 18 per cent pay gap that currently exists between men and women.

"After many years of appalling pay this decision finally gives them the recognition they deserve,” Ms White said.

“These workers do crucial work in our communities and yet up until now they have been paid more than 30 per cent less than those performing comparable work in other sectors.

"…The recommended phase in time for the increases has been extended from six years to eight years. This is disappointing for workers but we should not lose sight of the fact that this is the first decision that backs equal pay in a generation."

The first major milestone of the case was in May last year when FWA recognised that female SACS workers are currently being underpaid simply because of their sex.

The full bench then ruled that women working in the SACS industry are not paid the same as their male counterparts for the same or comparable work.

The application, initially lodged in March 2010, covered SACS workers in the aged and community care sector who are also members of Health Services Union (HSU), The Australian Workers’ Union of Employees, Queensland (AWU Queensland) and United Voice (UV).

The union’s submission specifically included tasks performed by women in the aged and community care sector in its list of duties that were labelled as having a “female characterisation”. Such caring tasks performed by females, the union claimed, are currently undervalued.

In November 2011, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that the application’s principle respondent, the Commonwealth, would publically and legally support the umbrella applicant, the ASU and present a joint submission to the FWA in the case.

Experts believe this move was what secured a win for the ASU.