Following changes to the Fair Work Act by the federal Labor government in 2022, there are new avenues to address the undervaluation of female-dominated occupations such as early childhood education and care (ECEC), Sue Osborne writes.
Back in 2013, the IEUA NSW/ACT Branch launched an equal remuneration order case in the Fair Work Commission to win pay rises for early childhood teachers, arguing they were underpaid because the sector is highly feminised.
This argument was dismissed by the commission due to the restrictive nature of the legislation at that time. There was a requirement to compare the work of early childhood teachers with a sector that mainly employs males.
In the IEU’s case, early childhood teachers were compared with engineers (a male-dominated profession). The commission was not convinced.
However, since the 2022 amendments, it is easier to argue a case based on gender, with expert panels now assisting in pay equity cases.
In a March article for the The Conversation, Lisa Heap, a PhD candidate at RMIT University and senior researcher at the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute, writes about the issue: “Advice from gender experts should assist in overcoming historical gender biases in commission decisions.
“Perhaps the most promising tool is the change to the commission’s modern awards objective, which requires it to eliminate gender-based undervaluation of work and provide workplace conditions that facilitate women’s full economic participation each time it reviews an award,” Heap writes.
Historically, the majority of feminised sector workers (such as early childhood education ad care, aged care, disability care etc), have had limited access to bargaining.
Landmark case
The IEUA NSW/ACT Branch, in concert with the United Workers’ Union (UWU) and the Australian Education Union (AEU), is undertaking a landmark supported bargaining application to the Fair Work Commission to cover teachers and educators employed in long day care services run by 64 employers in NSW.
The supported bargaining provisions were legislated as part of a range of reforms enacted in the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act 2022.
Federal Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke, speaking to the industrial relations amendments in parliament in October 2022, said: “The urgency of getting wages moving is most acute in feminised industries.”
“The gender pay gap still sits at an unacceptable 14.1 per cent. To promote job security, to close the gender pay gap, to get wages moving – we need to change the law,” Burke said.
“In the design of these reforms, we have deliberately focused on the needs of lower-paid and feminised workforces.
“Some of the most undervalued workers in our country are workers in female-dominated industries.
“Many are the very workers who put their health and safety on the line to guide us through the shutdown period of the pandemic.
“Work in these industries is undervalued because of unfair and discriminatory assumptions about the value of the work and the skill required to do the job.”
The IEUA NSW/ACT Branch is also aiming to run a supported bargaining case for teachers in 80 community-run preschools in NSW (see p12).
Earlier this year, aged care workers won their Fair Work case for a wage rise of up to 28.5 per cent.
The Health Services Union argued that the work had been undervalued due to its growing complexity and the fact that it was primarily performed by female workers.
IEU members are campaigning for a similar outcome in the ECEC sector this year.