NEW AUSTRALIAN WORKING TIME
MINIMUM STANDARDS: REPRODUCING
THE SAME OLD GENDERED
ARCHITECTURE?
Sara Charlesworth & Alexandra Heron
Women Collectivism Symposium
11 May 2011 University of Sydney

• Starting point: Does new FWA ‘safety net’ challenge legacy of
‘SER-centrism’ (Vosko 2007)?
• Focus on:
• Frontline paid care work
• Working time minima - neglected dimension in understanding pay inequity
• Thru analysis of on-paper provisions of NES & Aged Care,
SCHCDS & Manufacturing ‘modern’ awards
→from standpoint of part-time and casual workers

Manufacturing
• 27% women
• 11% casual (21% women)
• 15% PT (35% women)
• 3.8% underemployment
Community Services
• 85-90% women
• 29%-35%++ casual (Martin & King
2008)
• 40%-80% PT (PC 2010, 2011)
• 9.3% underemployment (15% community personal service workers
• Short hours PT
• 26% of frontline workers want more hours (1/2 want 10+ hpw more) (Martin & Healy 2010)

Legacy of Labour force & Regulatory Change
• Capacity to bargain major issue in female dominated sectors
•
• Less than ½ female workers covered by EAs
Women more likely to be award reliant (award safety net ceiling not floor)
• ¼ of PT female workers & 36% of casual female workers
• 15% manufacturing workers award reliant cf 17% health & social assistance industry & 31% of community & personal care workers
• Increased employer-orientated flexibility traded off for meagre wage increases:
•
• Widening span of hours
Reducing penalty rates
•
•
Decreasing periods of notice for roster changes esp for PT:
• Reduced minimum hours
• Provided for flexing up and down at ord time rates (no casual loading)
→ erosion of regularity & predictability of PT work as PT work increased:
• 1990= 10% → 2007=29%
• Protection of awards further eroded under WRA 1996 & Work Choices

Would guarantee:
‘a safety net of fair, relevant, and enforceable minimum terms and conditions for Australian workers’
Gillard 2008
Safety net = 10 National Employment
Standards + ‘modern’ awards

• NES 1: Maximum weekly hours = 38+ additional overtime
• No minimum weekly hours or minimum periods of engagement
• Casual workers not covered by NES on:
• annual leave, paid carers or compassionate leave, notice of termination or redundancy, paid community service and jury leave
• Casuals have to be ‘regular and systematic casuals’ with
12mths+ service to access NES on unpaid parental leave & RTR
• 46% of female casuals in job for < 1 year (ABS 2007)
• 12 mths service for unpaid parental leave & RTR excludes 26% of all women
• Can’t pursue breach of RTR flexible work and extension of unpaid parental leave

‘Modern’ Awards: How modern are they?
Modern = contemporary, up-to-date, new, fresh, cutting-edge…
AIRC recognised obligation to ‘have regard to the need to help and eliminate discrimination as well as to the needs of the low paid (AIRC,
29 April 2008)
But…
Award modernisation not about instituting relevant inclusive 21 st century standards
→ patching together of existing state and federal awards and maintaining status quo
‘…the way the AIRC created modern awards was they got all the
(relevant) awards and found the ‘critical mass’ on every condition’
Will Ash, National Legal Officer, United Voice

Manufacturing Aged Care SCHCDS
Minimum Engagements
PT 3 hours
Casual 4 hours
1 hour for HC’ers
2 hours for others
1 hour for HC’ers
2 hours for others
1 hour for HC’er
3 hrs for SACs,
2 hrs disability work
2 hours for others
Span of Hours
Day Workers
Weekend penalties
Part-time
6am-6pm M-F 6am-6pm M-F 6am-8pm M-Sun
Casual
W/e rates substitute for shift premia
W/e rates on top of casual loading
W/e rates substitute for shift premia
No provision
W/e rates substitute for shift premia
W/e rates not paid only casual loading

Manufacturing Aged Care SCHCDS
Overtime
Part-time Hours over PT agreed hours
Hours over FT
(pw/pf), or 10 hrs pd, or rostered daily hrs
Hours over FT
(pw/pf), or 10 hrs pd
Casual On top of casual loading
Hours over FT
(pw/pf), or 10 hrs pd
No provision
Casual conversion clause
After 6 mths reg casual work
Nil Nil

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•
•
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Manufacturing award despite SER basis provides:
• greatest regularity and predictability for PT
•
• written agreement of hours days, schedules
OT paid once over agreed hours
• discourages casual employment/ some security of income for casuals
•
• min hours = 4
Only 1 with casual conversion clause – yet casual work is exception
Aged Care award provides for a written agreement with variation by written agreement
SCHCDS award provides only for PT to ‘be informed’ by employer with silences on variations
Aged & SCHCDC awards
• flexing up and down of hours
• gendered hierarchy of care work dependent on location of care
SCHCDS award entrenches use of casuals
• Casuals only paid loading not overtime or weekend penalties

• SER-centrism continues to prevail in FWA safety net
• Better protection for non-standard workers in archetypal SER award
• Gendered hierarchy of care work between and within Aged and
SCHCDS awards
• Care work still not seen as ‘work’- QIRC 2009→
•
• Associated with ‘inherent’ caring skills of women
Seen as a vocation, not an occupation
• Widespread use of volunteers muddies assessment of work value
• Nature of client group leads workers to sacrifice ‘on-paper’ conditions
• Quality care provision depends on high job quality of care work
• Working time minima matter for decent working lives AND pay equity