Gillard supports unions' pay equity bid

10/03/2010 | 10:03 PM

Federal Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard is backing a union for taking a gender pay gap case to the industrial umpire.

The Australian Services Union will launch a test case with Fair Work Australia on Thursday regarding the lower pay of community sector workers.

They are the people who work in women's refuges, family support centres, drug and alcohol rehabilitation and migrant resources.

The union will argue that lower wages in the feminised community sector should be brought into line with pay rates in a similar, male-dominated industry.

Ms Gillard, who is also deputy prime minister, said the government would ensure Fair Work Australia had all the facts it needed to deal with the union's application.

"We believe it's in the long-term interests of this nation to sort this issue out and for us to have a community and social services sector with an appropriately dealt with, highly professional workforce," she told ABC Television on Wednesday.

"If we don't have fair arrangements for these workers, we know the cost of that is continual churn in the workforce."

Under the new Fair Work Australia regime, which began in January, unions can take pay equity cases to the national industrial umpire.

The legal machinery is also more streamlined with community sector worker awards to come under a national system from July.

Ms Gillard said a successful gender equity decision for community sector workers would be unlikely to spark wage pressures in the economy.

"It's not a change that would have flow-on into other awards, it would be for this section of the workforce," she said.

Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) president Sharan Burrow admitted the push for a $100 a week pay rise for 200,000 community sector workers was not small.

"We're not pretending it's not a sizeable figure but is that something that should stop women being paid properly," she told ABC Television.

She described women in the community sector as angels who helped the homeless, women in domestic violence situations and vulnerable children.

"You name it, they're there to care for people who need help most in our community yet they're paid a pittance," Ms Burrow said.

Opposition workplace relations spokesman Eric Abetz said higher wages for community sector workers could leave the federal government with a substantial wages bill in difficult budgetary circumstances.

"The general principle of pay equity is something I think most people would agree with but I do indicate there may well be caveats in relation to wage parity claims, the knock-on effect," Senator Abetz told ABC Television.

The ACTU estimates that women in the Australian labour market are paid 17 per cent less than men, and earned $1 million less over their working lives.

Ms Gillard, Ms Burrow and Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick will speak at the Equal Pay Alliance campaign on Thursday in Canberra.

The group, made up of unions and business, calls on political parties and employers to place more value on women's work.