Chapter:
8 - Community Services
Mover:
Katia Munoz
Seconder:
Leah Dwyer
 
 
Source:
Union: ASU
My Private Notes


Preamble
​The Australian Labor Party has a proud history of and commitment to gender equality. Labor is the party of Equal Pay. 
 
In 2012 ACT Labor supported ASU members working in the community sector to win their historic equal pay case. The gender pay gap is however about more than just wages. 
 
Since 2007, ACT Labor has supported the ACT Community Sector Multiple Employer Agreement (MEA) to ensures frontline, grassroots community services workers and their not-for-profit employers in Canberra have access to appropriate pay and conditions.  
 
 
Last year, ACT Labor committed to ensuring community sector commissioning can provide community sector workers with access to paid parental leave, family and domestic violence leave, and superannuation comparable to the ACT public sector.  
 
ACT Labor also committed to ensuring that the ACT Government would directly participated in tripartite negotiations with ASU members and MEA employers to establish how to fund and implement these conditions that, will make an immense and concrete contribution to true gender equality. 
 
ACT Labor should be proud of its efforts to reduce the gender pay gap in the ACT Public Sector to just 0.1% in 2023. Unfortunately however, no progress toward ensuring there is equality of conditions between its own workers and those at the community sector organisations it funds.  

For this reason, ASU members covered by the MEA have unanimously voted to seek a supported bargaining authorisation. 
General Resolution

Closing the gender pay gap in community services

1.    Conference recognises that closing the gender pay gap is about more than just wages. Paid parental leave, superannuation and family and domestic violence leave are also essential for Labor to live up to its commitment to equality. 

2.    ACT Labor: 

a)    Will make good on its commitment to ensure that the ACT Government supports ASU members covered by the ACT Community Sector MEA, 95% of whom are women, to have access to paid parental leave, improved family and domestic violence leave and superannuation. 

b)    Ensure the Government works closely with the ASU to reach a negotiated position for supported bargaining.

Recognises that funding these conditions for MEA workers is the first step to ensure that that all community sector workers funded by the ACT Government have access to conditions comparative to their ACT Government counterparts