The Fair Work Commission has been given new tools. Among them is the power to eliminate gender-based undervaluation of work in entire awards and groups of awards.
Our research shows that aged care work is still stigmatised by other health professionals as dirty, difficult and low-status – more than most other jobs.
Chalmers is in the driver’s seat as another Labor government copes with an economic crisis – very different from the GFC, but similar in being driven by circumstances not of the government’s making.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said that “for too long, those working in aged care have been asked to work harder for longer without enough reward, but with this budget that changes”
Despite the controversy over multi-employer bargaining, higher wages are likely to come from other provisions in the Albanese government’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill.
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
For more than a decade, employers have strung out negotiations or let agreements expire. Known as “zombie agreements”, those deals mean too many Australians are living with wages frozen in the past.
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Governments budget in billions. Yet analysis prepared for The Conversation shows they’ve been extraordinarily stingy with pay rises – particularly when it comes to teachers and nurses.
Uber, the poster company of the gig economy, has agreed its Australian workers deserve more employee-like conditions. Why it has done this now isn’t too hard to work out.