Last Thursday we were treated to a truly inspiring webinar from the VTHC Women’s Team about how women workers are standing up and fighting back. A panel of three speakers shared how they won their fights, and how the recent changes they've fought for are bringing the gender pay gap down to the lowest it has ever been.
Attendees of the webinar reported feeling excited and empowered after hearing about the strategies union women used to change laws and to win power in some of our most historically undervalued essential industries.
Samantha Casey - Assistant Secretary of Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) Vic Branch. Sam took attendees through the process by which registered and enrolled nurses in aged care, with the support and expertise of the ANMF, applied to vary the Nurses Award to increase minimum award wages for aged care nurses. Their application was made on the basis that the work had never been properly valued due to gender-based undervaluation of skills and qualifications, and that the work has increased in complexity and skill over the last decades.
The process by which aged care nurses achieved this historic win included working with government and the Fair Work Commission to develop work skill assessment tools to correctly value the work performed.
The result – a 22-28% pay increase for personal care and registered nurses. Read more - Extra $2.6 billion to deliver pay rise for aged care nurses - ANMF
Victoria Edge - Early childhood educator, delegate, bargaining rep and organiser with United Workers Union (UWU). Victoria shared her experiences as a contributor in the fight for proper recognition of the skills of early childhood educators and an appropriate wage to reflect those skills. Early education is critical in preparing our children for school, but they have historically been some of our lowest paid workers.
The process by which the early childhood educators achieved their win was the first example of multi-employer bargaining where conditions can be negotiated by employees and employers over an entire industry and new rights for bargaining representatives to bring the funding body to the table in negotiations. The development and use of skill classification tools was assisted by the previous tools used in the aged care pay case.
The result – a 15% pay increase for more than 50,000 early childhood educators. Read more - Early Educators Pay Rise – United Workers Union
Samantha Holmes - medical scientist and delegate with Medical Scientists of Victoria (MSAV). Sam spoke of how private sector medical scientists – a largely invisible industry comprised primarily of highly skilled and qualified women – have pay and conditions that fall well below those of public sector medical scientists, and the action her workmates took to successfully negotiate fair pay and conditions with their employer who was not used to dealing with a strong collective of workers whose membership and activism grew significantly over the course of their campaign.
Sam also gave evidence last year to the Fair Work Commission as part of the gender undervaluation case run by the Health Services Union to increase the minimum award rates of healthcare professionals. The key issues under consideration are whether the work of relevant employees involves the exercise of invisible skills or caring work, whether work value increases would justify higher award minimum wages, and the benchmarking of wage rates against particular qualifications.
The decision of the gender undervaluation case is due this year - Gender undervaluation – priority awards review | Fair Work Commission
Each of the panel contributors reported that their members experienced a tidal wave effect once they felt the initial empowerment to stand up and take power – one successful action leads to another until we win our worth. When workers take action collectively, they feel most connected.
Read about the 20 reforms that are closing the gender pay gap faster - Minding-the-Gap.pdf