History of employment rights in the SACS Industry

Click here to an article which first appeared in the Journal of Industrial Relations, which proves an interesting read, about why the struggle for industrial recognition was so long and hard. 

Until the 1990s, most workers employed by non-government community services organisations were excluded from the most basic right of Australian ‘industrial citizenship’—award coverage. Expected to be a formality by the predecessor to the ASU, the Australian Social Welfare Union, establishing an award for the non-profit social and community services sector became a grinding struggle at both federal and state levels against the resistance of both Liberal-National coalition and Labor party governments, the major charities and other unions stretching from the 1970s through the 1990s.  

The article also emphasises the lack of social recognition for care-work and contradictions amongst care-workers between their roles as professionals, caring for others, and unionists - factors which led to internal, institutional, strategic and cultural resistance to an award for the social and community services workers. 

All members are encouraged to have a read, and hope that our recent history can inspire and inform us, as we embark on our campaign to take the next step, to improve funding for above-Award wages and conditions to our sector.

Full acknowledgment:

This paper has been published in the Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 49, issue 4, September 2007 by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 by the Industrial Relations Society of Australia (IRSA). For more information on the Journal of Industrial Relations (JIR), contents alerts, free electronic access to table of contents and abstracts, please visit http://jir.sagepub.com

Full citation:

Briggs, C., Meagher, G. and Healy, K. (2007) ‘Becoming an Industry: The Struggle of Social and Community Workers for Award Coverage, 1976—2001 ’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 49(4): 497-521.