Equal Pay Campaign Rises Again

Equal Pay Campaign Rises Again

by Sally McManus, NSW Secretary of the Australian Services Union

(This is good example of how a union goes about organising – here the equal pay campaign. It is from the magazine Australian Options no 66)

‘The origins of the current equal pay campaign lie in the unionisation of disability and community workers by the Australian Social Welfare Union, now incorporated in the ASU, which in the 1980s redefined industrial law by winning an historic High Court decision to expand the definition of “industry”.

The average wage for a community worker with a degree is around $45000 a year, for increasingly complex work outsourced from the public service to community providers reliant on government funds.

These include child protection, early intervention for families where children may be at risk, community based mental health services and full-time residential support for people with disabilities.

State budget cuts are a major factor in decisions to outsource. The gap between public sector and community sector wages for workers doing the same or comparable work (as found by Fair Work Australia in its decision of 15 May 2011) is more than 30% on average. In NSW a new employee working alone who supports four people with such serious disabilities they need intense 24 hour support, earns $37700, whilst their public sector counterpart would earn $52000.

ASU members in this sector are in a weak bargaining position. Colouring everything is the gendered history of the sector and an entrenched historical belief that support for the most vulnerable in our community is less valuable than other work. This stems from the unpaid work women have traditionally performed “caring” for children, people with disabilities and the aged at home or in the community.

Governments have exploited this undervaluation by locking in low pay to funding contracts and then absolving themselves of any responsibility for this exploitation.

Organising in the sector is difficult – very small workplaces and the majority of employees being non-full time workers. Finally, the work itself makes traditional industrial militancy a far more complex proposition than it is for workers in most other areas of the economy.

Industrial action does not stop the means of production or affect profit or create an immediate public pressure. Withholding labour firstly affects the most disadvantaged in our community – people who are often unseen and often have no one to support and care for them other than ASU members. This weighs heavily on the minds of ASU members when industrial strategies are discussed.

Campaigning strategies and tactics: Five elements

Visibility

We understood at the beginning of this campaign in 2007, that in order to build a campaign that went beyond our members, we had to overcome the fact that the general public had a low level of understanding of the work of our members. The people our members support are also themselves often invisible or forgotten – the homeless, the isolated, those with severe intellectual disabilities. We understood that we needed to overcome these issues.

Our strategy was to ask members to nominate themselves as “Equal Pay Ambassadors”; workers who were broadly representative of those in the sector. We promoted their images, their work and their stories at events we held around the country. Not only did this allow others to identify with them, but it gave us a means of talking to the media and the public about the importance of the work and the injustice of their wages. Case studies like this have been an important element of the campaign.

Agitating

In 2007 we conducted a very large survey of workers across the industry – asking them about their pay, their aspirations, their qualifications, their experience and how long they thought they would stay in the industry. This was a means of raising consciousness among isolated workers, who then saw their own, often unspoken experience, replicated and resonating thousands of times.

These survey results were predicably dire – low wages, high qualifications, unrecognised experience and an inability to stay in the sector because of the poverty wages. We used these results to agitate – to talk directly about the injustice of the situation. We talked not just about the injustice of poverty wages, but of the negative impact high worker turn-over and difficulty attracting new workers to the industry has on the clients.

The use of clear, stark examples to highlight the injustice of the situation was important.

We pointed out that workers in Woolworths who stack shelfs get paid the same as a disability worker who supports people with disabilities.

A person who works in a Video Store gets paid more to sort DVDs, than someone who supports women who is escaping domestic violence.

Elevating

Righteous anger is a powerful motivator, but without a strategy to overcome such poor wage rates, such anger can easily turn inwards or lead to people giving up as changing the situation seems impossible.

The role of leadership is to clear chart a way forward that is believable to those unhappy with the status quo. Without this, a campaign runs into the sand very quickly.

Our break-through occurred when the Queensland ASU won an equal pay case for community workers in the dying days of the State IR system. This lead to 25% wage increases in some instances. All of a sudden, we could see our destination and set a course to achieve it. The impetus this gave us led to the eventual signing of an agreement with the Federal Government to run our current Equal Remuneration case before Fair Work Australia for all disability and community workers across the county.

The other critical part of elevating the importance of our campaign for our members, once our course via an Equal Pay case was set, was talking about the historical significance of the case and the fact that a higher principle was at stake – closing the pay gap between men and women’s wages in Australia, currently at 18%.

We talked a lot about winning this campaign is not just about our wages, but will pave the way for other workers. For workers who are strongly motivated by social justice issues and influence by the women’s movement, this higher principle has been a powerful motivator.

We had several set events to situate our campaign in the struggle for equal pay honouring working class women and prominent feminists who had been a part of this long struggle. This had built great pride amongst our membership who have been ready and more than willing to step up and take their place in the history of this struggle.

Mobilising

Mobilisations have played an important role in our campaign. They have been a means of not just building public awareness of our struggle, but about overcoming isolation for workers in small workplaces.

There are naturally severe limits on the sense of collective strength and union that can be built in workplaces of five employees. Our days of action, marches and rallies have bought together workers in their thousands in capital cities and regional centres. At these events, workers can feel the sense of strength and collective power, only such a bringing together can achieve.

We try and make all our mobilisations uplifting and fun events that uniquely reflect the culture of our sector. For example, our last big public protest involved thousands of workers performing a dance that was practiced for months with small groups of workers in their workplaces and then replicated by thousands of workers dancing in unison.

This has built pride in the capacity and uniqueness of their Union as well as a sense of being part of something larger – the broader union movement which has stood with us.

Mobilisations have lead to a surge of new members in the lead-up, as like strikes, workplaces talk about the Union and every worker needs to decide whether or not they will be part of the action – there is no sitting on the fence.

Exerting Political Power

Politicians of all politician persuasions have ensured that they associate themselves with the “good work” of their local community organisation. There will always be a clammer to attend openings of buildings and the launch of projects and for photos with the people doing “such good work” in their electorates, especially at election time.

Our members used this in a strategic way in the lead-up to the last election. We organised members across most electorates to ask candidates to sign commitments to support funding for Equal Pay.

All this work paid off when it seemed the Federal Government was wavering on their support for our case.

We mobilised thousands of members to call, email and visit their MPs who signed the commitment and demand they keep their word. The effect of this was powerfulas a critical number of MPs took their commitments seriously, or were worried enough of the consequences of not delivering, and became internal advocates with the Government. This secured an announcement a month ago from the Gillard Government to fund pay rises that may arise from our case.

Outcomes

We do not know what the result will be from the legal side of our campaign before Fair Work Australia.

However, we will continue the fight until we win pay justice.

The outcomes for workers, for our Union, are significant. We are not as invisible as we once were. We know we can fight and win widespread support. Our membership has grown and continues to grow significantly. Most importantly, our sense of power and the pride our members have built in their Union is a long term outcome who’s benefit is immeasurable.’

Remember that this Equal Pay campaign is not over until there are significant wage rises granted to these workers…we will see.

Please distribute this article as a case study on union organising where strike action is not possible.

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