Pay rise good for workers and men
Published in Canberra Times
6 Feb 2012
Fair Work Australia’s decision to incrementally increase the pays of community sector employees over the next eight years is not just good news for women. It is good news for men.
When I completed a post graduate Bachelor of Social Work at the University of Melbourne, 95 per cent of the students were female. After working in the profession for seven years, a number of factors compelled me to leave. It was grossly underpaid for the over 60 hours per week that were worked, often without lunch breaks. The very nature of the caring profession attracts people who are not clock-watchers.
Those of us who were multilingual were too often misused opportunistically as interpreters instead of getting the ”real” professionals. Instead, we could have been consulted on cultural practices and beliefs. The men in this profession were often the primary breadwinners of their families and could not afford a reliable car or to buy their own home. The fact that more women are now the primary breadwinners compounds the standard of living issue.
The profession suffered a hangover from its original days as church volunteers or religious vocations where benevolent work was done for altruistic rather than financial fulfilment. Past attempts at seeking fair remuneration and treating this work as a livelihood were silenced and smeared as immorally capitalising on the misfortunes of the have-nots.
“Community work” was meted out as part of a suite of penalties by magistrates in lieu of fines or imprisonment. It was humiliating and ironic that one man’s profession is another man’s punishment!
When comparing the salary entitlement for a social worker compared with my fellow graduates who had also completed at least four years of study, mine was at least 30 per cent lower than those who entered male-dominated professions such as accounting, ostensibly because of the dominant gender of the profession.
The demands on male social workers were high given their shortage and the need for gender-sensitive services, especially those servicing specific cultural communities. It is this last point that may be overlooked in the ”victory for women” euphoria. Indeed, the traditional disparity between female- and male-dominated professions is discriminatory.
I acutely recall that men in this profession could not make ends meet, so they ambitiously sought senior management roles or jumped ship to another profession, like me. Either way, our society was losing trained men who were valuable for face-to-face work with male clients.
These men are as precious and sought-after as male teachers in schools. As a social worker, I was inundated with referrals to counsel men who were violent, homeless, alcoholic, depressed, abusive, suicidal, unemployed, immigrant, refugee, imprisoned, etc. Or simply men who preferred to confide in their ”fellow man”, just as women may prefer a female doctor. Some men were reluctant to ”open up” to women, while others found the entire concept of social work foreign. I could not keep up with the waiting list and when I announced my resignation, my colleagues and clients were devastated.
It was not financially viable to maintain this lowly paid job and establish a family. Something had to give, or I needed a second job, which would consume what little was left of family time.
With this news of greater pay parity, men may be more likely to stay in this profession and treat it as a sustainable career. The pay parity is not only an overdue relief for men in this profession, but indeed men in society in need. With census data showing that more of us are living alone and living longer, with family support networks fragmenting, we clearly need to care for those who will be caring for us.
Joseph Wakim is a Sydney writer and a former social worker.