16 May 2011

Fair pay to slug the community sector dependent

| johnboy
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Griffin Centre

The Greens are worried that a community sector pay ruling will lead to a cut in services to the disadvantaged who rely on community sector services.

The problem is that over the years Government have outsourced essential services to non profit orgs that only make economic sense if they can run leaner than Government agencies.

Now those not for profits will have to pay higher wages it might make more sense to bring their services back in house.

But for now Meredith Hunter just wants more money ploughed into the sector.

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Whereas I support equal pay, we also have to realistic about who pays the bill. The simple answer is either reduced funding to services or increased taxes. Either way, there will be winners and losers.

Personally I think they deserve the pay rise – the base wage for this group has been stagnant for years.

However, most are funded by Government and that is where the burden will fall – our taxes. BUT – I wonder how many organisations have been taking the WPI increase on their government funding each year and not putting a share into increasing their employee wages? sure services are always in demand but if 80% of your funding is staffing then 80% of any increase in your grant or service payment should go to improving the wages of your staff – if an organisation did then the wage rise wouldn’t be so tough for the organisation – if they just increased services but not staff wages then they have set themselves up.

I am glad the staff won the fight, I hope now that they can get what they have won without too much pain.

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