Equal Work Equal Pay

Message from Julia Gillard

Details

Published on Wednesday, 16 November, 2011

Dear ASU members,

For too long Australia has undervalued ASU workers in the social and community services sector.

Last week I was proud to announce the Labor Government is pushing the case for you to get a pay rise.

We’re putting over $2 billion on the table for 150, 000 workers in your sector.

Alongside the ASU, my Labor Government will make a submission to Fair Work Australia that argues for rates of pay that fairly and properly value social and community sector work.  We know most of you are women and that full-time working women earn on average one fifth less than men.  That equates to women working seven weeks a year for free.

Frankly, it’s just wrong.

That’s why we’re arguing for rates of pay that don’t discriminate, so decades of inequality are brought to an end.

I would like to recognise your contribution to this announcement. Not just for your daily work in our communities, but also your struggle, through your union, to run this Equal Pay case and to use Labor’s Fair Work laws to have your work properly valued.  You have sent me Kiss postcards and YouTube videos, you have delivered petitions with thousands of signatures, you have called, faxed and emailed. You have rallied in your thousands.  You have fought for equal pay.

This equal pay case has only been possible through the introduction of Labor’s Fair Work laws. Prior to the Fair Work Act all 16 applications for equal pay had failed because the test was impossible to meet. 

When I abolished Work Choices and created Fair Work Australia I hoped for an outcome like this.  I hoped Labor’s new laws would lead to a fair decision, based on fair evidence, that often people who work in female-dominated sectors had been underpaid for a long time.

This is an historic announcement for you and your colleagues and it’s something only a Labor Government will deliver.

Julia Gillard

Prime Minister