Children's Services, Wages and Workchoices

Abstract

IN MARCH 2006 the Industrial Relations Commissions of New South Wales and Queensland utilised their equal-remuneration wage-fixing principles to address the gender undervaluation of childcare work. In doing so the tribunals explicitly rejected employer arguments used in the past to limit increases in award rates of pay for childcare workers. While these decisions were thought to have a wide ranging impact on a significant area of feminised work, their influence is likely to be short-lived. The introduction of the Howard Government's new federal workplace relations system under the WorkChoices legislation provides employers with the opportunity to reargue the NSW and Queensland equal-remuneration cases. This opportunity is facilitated by the operation of the award ‘rationalisation’ process and the determination of minimum wages and classification scales by the new Australian Fair Pay Commission. Some employers are utilising these opportunities to argue for cuts to the award wages of childcare workers, both in nominal and real terms. In this context it is difficult to conclude that the federal WorkChoices wage-fixing system is a fair system.