Today will be go down in the annals of equal pay history; the Labor government commitment to fund pay rises for thousands of women finally gives recognition of the invaluable work provided by workers in the social and community sector (SACS).

BPW Australia president Marilyn Forsythe applauded the government’s action to support pay rises averaging 20% to workers who have historically been unpaid and undervalued. “We have been lobbying for equal pay for more than 30 years and this is one big step in  clawing back our gender pay gap,” Ms Forsythe said.

As a proud partner of the Equal Pay Alliance we have lent our support to the unions and workers involved in this case and hope that the Federal government commitment will be echoed by all States and territories across Australia.

Of the 150,000 SACS workers there are 120,000 women – they look after the homeless, the disabled, refugees, domestic violence victims, children at risk and other vulnerable people in our society.  “They have our admiration – but they need a fair wage” said Ms Forsythe.

With our gender pay gap steady at 18% we hope that this, along with other initiatives such as the current review of the Equal Opportunity in the Workplace Act, combine to deliver real equal pay for working women.

For more information contact Marilyn Forsythe on 0412259656

Media Contact: Sandra Cook, National Director of Policy, 0409608344

This entry was posted on Friday, November 11th, 2011 at 4:36 pm and is filed under Historical. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.