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BETH:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Beth Atkinson Quinton. This is 7am.

It's been over 50 years since equal pay for equal work became law in Australia.

But right now, across the workforce, women are still significantly underpaid. In recent years, efforts to better value women's work and increase wages have stalled.

Now, a new case being brought to the Fair Work Commission by a group of aged care workers could change that.

Today, writer for The Saturday Paper Kristine Ziwica on the case that could help close the gender pay gap.

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BETH:

Kristine, throughout this pandemic, one sector has really been in key focus. That's the aged care sector. Can you tell me why?

KRISTINE:

Well, they've just been thrust onto the front line of this pandemic. Older Australians are amongst the most vulnerable to the virus and aged care workers are charged and have always been charged with the vitally important task of looking after them, but now also keeping them safe.

We can see the aged care workers as essential. We celebrate them.

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison:

“They are doing the work of absolute heroes, keeping their residents safe, encouraging them, sustaining and respecting them, helping them navigate through a terrible time.”

KRISTINE:

But when it comes down to brass tacks, we just don't treat them as such. Certainly not in terms of their pay and conditions. So the current starting pay for a personal carer is around $21.96 per hour. It's been a significant driver of the gender pay gap.

So as the pandemic has gone on, this has created a really interesting dichotomy.

BETH:

Yeah, it does seem pretty hypocritical to describe these workers as essential, and fundamental to our pandemic response, but then pay them so little. So tell me more about the people who work in aged care. Who are they?

KRISTINE:

So it's an industry that's predominantly staffed by women, about 85%, and including older women and largely migrant women as well. And I've been talking to a lot of these women over the last few months as I've been researching and reporting and what I learned when speaking to the workers, who work in aged care and other undervalued female dominated professions, is that they do highly skilled and very hard work. They're also very dedicated to the people that they care for.

Archival tape -- Josie Peacock:

“It brings a lot of reward. It kind of gets in your blood, I suppose.”

KRISTINE:

And one of the women I met and spoke with is named Josie Peacock.

Archival tape -- Josie Peacock:

“I'd never had much to do with elderly people, but I just thoroughly enjoyed engaging with them. I enjoyed their stories. I enjoyed helping”

KRISTINE:

So Josie is 54 years old and she lives just outside of Sydney and she's worked in the aged care sector for almost 30 years.

Archival tape -- Josie Peacock:

“I did a variety of roles; worked as a personal carer, but also, you know, did some cleaning, did some recreational activities work. I did, you know, morning shift, afternoon shift, night shift. I did whatever was required.”

BETH:

OK, and can you tell me a little bit more about the work. What’s an average day like for someone like Josie?

KRISTINE:

So Josie told me about the long days and the hard work.

Archival tape -- Josie Peacock:

“Because of Covid there, there has been a huge change in my role. I have been helping out recently with the screening of visitors at the front door, we were helping out with managing all the concierge, the rostering, the training...”

KRISTINE:

And basically being a jack of all trades, taking on any task that comes and needs to get done.

Archival tape -- Josie Peacock:

“I see myself as being very flexible, very adaptable, and going with the flow”

KRISTINE:

Josie herself has said that over that period of time, she's developed considerable expertise. She's managed up to 15 staff. She manages hundreds of volunteers. But she only earns about $28 an hour.

And that means, like many in the sector, she's juggling two jobs at two different providers because she can't get enough hours from a single provider to make ends meet.

Archival tape -- Josie Peacock:

“The kid at the front door at Bunnings who was welcoming shoppers was earning dollars more than carers in aged care. There's absolutely no disrespect to the person at Bunnings. I think it's marvellous that they earn what they earn. Pay in aged care just needs to keep up with the rest of society because it's just way behind.”

KRISTINE:

Josie is not alone in expressing her frustration with the poor pay and conditions. Over and over again, I heard the same story from women working in the industry I spoke to.

Archival tape -- Josie Peacock:

“The carers in aged care are responsible for the physical, social, emotional, spiritual and psychological well-being of residents, 24 hours a day.They're providing so many different roles, all rolled into one.”

BETH:

Mmm and, you know, as you've said, it's a workforce that's heavily dominated by women. They're doing complex and really challenging work. They are underpaid, they're undervalued. Is there anything that they can do about that?

KRISTINE:

Yes, they can. And they are. So Josie, along with other aged care workers and their union, the Health Services Union, are taking a case, a landmark case, to the Fair Work Commission.

Archival tape -- Josie Peacock:

“People are tired. People are fed up”

KRISTINE:

And in that case, they're seeking a 25% pay rise. Now, I spoke to a lot of experts when I was reporting this piece, and they told me that they really see this case as the opening salvo in a broader reckoning on the so-called undervaluing of women's work. And that's the low pay and the poor conditions that go alongside highly feminised, meaning female dominated, professions.

And if it's successful, this could really send a powerful signal that we're turning the corner on this issue.

BETH:

We'll be back after this.

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BETH:

Kristina, we're talking about a potentially landmark case that aged care workers like Josie are bringing to the Fair Work Commission to try and get a pay rise. This case could be significant to the gender pay gap. Can you tell me what they’re arguing?

KRISTINE:

So technically, it's what we call a work value case. The union is seeking something that's called an equal remuneration order from the Fair Work Commission.

Now, this order can be made by the commission, where an employee is being paid less because of their gender, and it ensures that there will be equal pay for what we call a work of equal or comparable value.

So the Health Services Union will argue that the work of aged care workers has changed over time and it's become more complex and that the needs of an ageing population and community expectations of care have evolved.

Archival tape -- Gerard Hayes:

“This is a job that not many other people could compare to where you go to work, you befriend people, you become close as family do, and then they die. And then you do it again and again and again. So it's a physical stress on people. It's a psychological stress on people.”

KRISTINE:

Gerard Hayes, who's the national secretary of the Health Services Union, told me that older Australians are entering residential aged care with increasingly complex physical, social and emotional needs.

Archival tape -- Gerard Hayes:

“The aged care workforce is probably 85-90% female based, and it's not being remunerated appropriately at all. The level of clinical skill, but also emotional and social skill, is never measured.”

KRISTINE:

However, their pay has not really kept up with that. So if the case does succeed, it could be pretty huge and have a ripple effect.

BETH:

Yeah, it's pretty shocking that their pay hasn't changed, given what you've said about an ageing population creating more complex caring needs. What do you mean by this ripple effect into other care industries? Can you tell me more about how other industries that are dominated by women are facing similar problems?

KRISTINE:

Well, put simply, we as a society, we just don't value the paid work that women do.

And the key point that aged care workers and their advocates are making is that it's been 50 years, just over 50 years, 51 years since equal pay for equal work became the law of the land here in Australia.

But we still have a significant gender pay gap of 13.4% and progress on that has just all but stalled. So the question is, why is that?

So working in a female dominated occupation can reduce your pay by as much as 9%. And research has found that when women enter a field in large numbers that used to be male dominated and it becomes female dominated, pay goes down. For the exact same job that men used to do. Just because women do it, we think it's not as valuable. So the research showed us that the gender pay gap will close for women in the C Suite, women moving up the corporate ranks. But for these hard working women, it's just not going to close. We're not getting anywhere.

So the Morrison government will point to the latest gender pay gap figures and they'll say, as they have repeatedly, well, you know, they're at a historic low...

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison:

“Under this government, the gender pay gap got to its lowest level. Under this government, the labour force participation of women got to its highest level, Mr Speaker.”

KRISTINE:

But that figure is extremely misleading because more men are in low paid professions, not because more women are in higher paying professions. So the structural position of women in the workforce has not changed at all.

BETH:

Okay, so the government sounds like it’s pretending that the gender pay gap isn't really an issue but, what role could they play in helping solve this problem?

KRISTINE:

So the government has a pretty significant role to play, because unlike other drivers of the gender pay gap, such as the disproportionate burden of unpaid care work that women carry as opposed to men; or discrimination, which need a variety of levers, a variety of action to address them, not all of them in the government's direct control. The government has a pretty significant direct lever to tackle this issue, and it's not pulling it. If the Morrison government wanted to, they could put a dent in an issue that accounts for about a fifth of the gender pay gap; they could simply direct the aged care providers to pay more.

And the reason they can do that is because they are the primary funder of the sector. So the government could also intervene, in this case at the Fair Work Commission, and indicate that they would support the wage increase and that they would fund it.

And in fact, the royal commission into Aged Care, Quality and Safety recommended that the government and the unions and the advocacy groups get together to address “workforce issues” within the aged care sector, which is basically a euphemism for all the issues that we've been talking about.

And one of the ways that they could do that would be to intervene in this case, in front of the Fair Work Commission and say we will fund this. They haven't done it.

BETH:

Kristine, you've been covering these issues of women's work being undervalued for quite a while now. Why do you think it's taken so long? Why are we just now, you know, having cases brought on through Fair Work to tackle the issue of gender pay inequality?

KRISTINE:

So I've been writing and thinking about this issue probably for about 20 years now. And I do think that the pandemic has really galvanised this workforce.

Archival tape -- Josie Peacock:

“Certainly Covid and the Royal Commission really highlighted some very, very major issues in aged care. I think the general public were probably horrified. And I haven’t seen anything like that in my time in aged care.”

KRISTINE:

The Royal Commission also raised the issue up the agenda with a sense of urgency, because we can see not only the impacts that this pay and these conditions are having on the women who work in this industry and their economic security; but we can also see the impacts it's having on the quality of care for the people who need it.

So I think that there's a sort of confluence of things that have come together in this kind of perfect storm that have really added a renewed sense of urgency.

Archival tape -- Josie Peacock:

“After 30 years, it makes you re-evaluate whether you can keep doing this for another 20 years. I don’t know. Yes it's a rewarding job and I love what I do, but, BUT, can I keep doing it?”

BETH:

Kristine, thank you so much for your time.

KRISTINE:

Thank you.

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BETH:

Also in the news today…

The number of new Covid-19 cases in New South Wales has dropped for the first time in a week.

The state recorded 89 new locally acquired cases yesterday. One man in his 70s who contracted the virus passed away.

Authorities are also concerned about the outbreak spreading out of Sydney, after a case was detected in Goulburn, south of Sydney.

And the Queensland government has warned it won’t hesitate to shut the border to New South Wales, following the ongoing outbreak in the state.

I’m Beth Atkinson Quinton, this is 7am, I'll see you tomorrow.

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