In a groundbreaking move, Australia’s Fair Work Commission (FWC) has issued a decision that significantly advances the fight for gender pay equity for health and social care workers. The Commission found that longstanding undervaluation of care work—especially in care and early childhood education—was driven by historic gendered devaluation of care work and ordered substantial pay increases to rectify this injustice.

After many years of campaigning by unions, including PSI’s affiliates, the Australian government changed the national labour law to allow the FWC to consider the historic gendered valuations of work to redress pay inequity. Previously, unions had to bring claims using a ‘male comparator’ – a system that has failed to redress pay inequity globally.

The Commission assessed the wages of five categories of workers:

• Indigenous health workers

• Childcare workers

• Social, community, home care and disability workers

• Professional and support workers in the health industry who are not doctors and nurses

• Pharmacy workers

The key questions the commission assessed were:

• has the work been historically undervalued because of assumptions based on gender

• does the work involve the exercise of ‘invisible’ skills (including gender-related indigenous cultural skills) and/or caring work

 These invisible skills could include skills relating to interpersonal and contextual awareness, verbal and non-verbal communication, emotion management and dynamic workflow coordination.

This marks a historic achievement for the trade union movement in Australia. Traditionally, equal pay has been understood as providing the same wage for the same work, regardless of gender or other backgrounds. However, this approach has often overlooked the unique skills individuals bring due to their gendered and cultural experiences. As a result, sectors like care work—largely staffed by women—remain undervalued, despite requiring highly specific and essential skills.

The recent decision takes a major step toward correcting this imbalance. Rather than relying on male comparators to determine wages, it acknowledges the distinct, gendered skills involved in care work and aims to bring women-dominated professions on par with those typically held by men.

This is a significant shift, one grounded in feminist analysis, to reframe how we define and assess the value of work. It involves recognising the cultural and emotional skills inherent in care work and challenging the outdated scripts that continue to undervalue it.

This ruling builds on the win in Aged Care that delivered significant pay rises to aged care workers after years of campaigning by nurses' unions, the work of CICTAR and PSI to expose the corporatisation of aged care (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3) and a Royal Commission into aged care . Details about the steps to remedy wage inequality are pending. But the decision opens the door for broader wage justice claims across the public and community sectors. Importantly, it rejects the idea that "market rates" should determine wages in historically feminised sectors.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) welcomed the decision as a "monumental win" for working women, union power, and the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. It underscores the crucial role of unions in fighting gendered economic inequality, particularly in sectors vital to social infrastructure.

For unions around the world, the implications are clear: it is possible to challenge the structural undervaluation of care and public service work through collective campaigns. This decision sets a precedent that could inspire similar campaigns globally—especially as workers and unions push for just transitions and public investment in care and essential services.

Read more from The Conversation’s coverage of the decision here.