AUSTRALIA: CATH. SOCIAL SERVICES CALLS ON PARTIES TO PROVIDE FAIR WAGES

Cath News report: Catholic Social Services Australia has called on both major political parties to guarantee that services will not have to be sacrificed to provide fair wages to workers in the social and community services sector.
The call comes as Fair Work Australia will today continue hearing a claim by the Australian Services Union on behalf of social and community sector workers, said a statement by the CSSA.
"Fair Work Australia may dramatically increase wages across the social and community services sector, which is funded largely by governments, but cannot bind governments to meet the cost of those increases in wages," said Frank Quinlan, Executive Director of Catholic Social Services Australia.
"Without government commitments, services may suffer. A similar case in Queensland saw increases of up to 35%."
Catholic Social Services Australia today released its submission to Fair Work Australia, prepared jointly with the Catholic Commission for Employment Relations, which supports increased pay to the
sector but warns that governments must support the sector.
"We believe that any fair assessment of the Catholic social services workforce, whether from the
perspective of gender equity or relative work value, will find that their pay and conditions do not reflect their full value to the community.
"We have identified this as a long term threat to the sustainability of the services that we deliver. Unlike other sectors of the workforce, we are largely dependent upon others, mainly governments, to correct this situation."
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=22825

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