Enough is enough: ASU files historic 35% pay increase claim for 300,000 underpaid community and disability workers

Australian Services Union Media Release 10th June 2026

The Australian Services Union will tomorrow file an historic work value claim in the Fair Work Commission seeking pay rises of up to 35% for 300,000 community and disability workers.

The filing follows last week’s landmark Fair Work Commission decision in the SCHADS Award where the ASU successfully fought to ensure workers’ wages did not go backwards in the review of classifications.

The ASU welcomes this victory but is now announcing the final step in the fight: it’s time to see real wages growth across the SCHADS Award.

Last week’s decision follows a two year pause in on the ASU’s work value claim requested by the Fair Work Commission while it assessed the gender-based undervaluation case. Last week’s decision protected workers’ wages but it did not fix them. Community and disability workers have spent over a decade absorbing growing complexity, higher regulatory demands and greater community need. They’ve absorbed all of this on pay that has failed to reflect the true value of what they do.

Tomorrow, the ASU will make that case in the Fair Work Commission.

The work value claim will demonstrate that since the last major pay review in 2012, the complexity of work for community and disability workers has grown substantially. These workers, across an underpaid, feminised workforce, now apply person-centred, trauma-informed care, harm reduction methods and culturally competent practice as standard. Regulatory requirements have vastly increased and the communities being served are larger and their needs are more acute but their pay has failed to reflect these growing demands.

Jobs and Skills Australia projects the sector will grow by 23% by 2035, substantially more than any other sector, but at the same time, nearly 1 in 3 (28.9%) community workers have reported borrowing money from family or friends to meet their basic living costs. And 13% reported skipping meals due to a shortage of money.

The vast majority of this workforce is women-led, and it is the glue that holds communities together. Community and disability workers give critical care to people doing it tough. They make sure no one falls through the cracks, and do it with a complex set of skills, care and dedication that hear all too often, families could not live without.

Their pay does not reflect that, and it needs to. That’s why the ASU will launch this work value claim and will kick-off a campaign to ensure that Governments funds this urgently needed lift in pay for community and disability workers. 

Speaking ahead of Wednesday’s filing, ASU National Secretary Emeline Gaske said:

“These workers hold communities together. They are overwhelmingly women, doing extraordinarily skilled and demanding work, but they’ve been underpaid for too long. That is what this claim is about.

“We surveyed our members and what they told us was stark. More than half say they cannot get ahead financially. One in three won’t have enough to retire on.

“All this leads to turnover in the sector being too high. These are skilled and experienced professionals doing vital work, and they cannot afford to live on what they are currently paid.

“As the sector continues to grow and demand for workers is surging, we cannot afford to lose workers because pay is failing to keep up with the cost of living. Something has to give, and that something is pay.

The ASU is calling for a 35% pay rise backed by research, member testimony and expert evidence that it will submit as part of its claim.

Last week, the ASU won changes that will see the end of wage theft in the NDIS, a simple and modern classification system that provides better pathways to progression for workers, the union won landmark recognition of lived experience in the Award.

But what that decision did not do is recognise or value the skills and complexity of the work, how the work has changed over time, nor provide any substantial pay increase to these essential workers. The Gender Based Undervaluation process is not complete until it is recognised that these workers have been undervalued and underpaid and delivers the 35% pay increase these workers deserve.

“Community and disability workers have been undervalued and underpaid for too long”, said Ms. Gaske.

“Filing this claim on Wednesday is the ASU saying clearly and loudly that we intend to fix that. We’re going to kick off a campaign to make sure the Government funds this because it’s time the Government put its money where its mouth is.

“Just 12 months ago, workers in this sector were facing pay cuts of up to $900 a week. We fought that off. Now we’re going to finish the job by demanding a pay raise for the sector because it’s long overdue.

“We will only be closer to fixing this historic undervaluation and improving gender equity by increasing the pay of these workers by 35%.

“Four in ten community and disability workers are planning to leave their role in the next twelve months, the turnover in the sector is more than five times the national average.

“We can’t expect to meet the growing needs of Australia with a shrinking workforce; we have to invest in our workers if we’re asking them to invest in our community.

“We look forward to working with the government in this campaign. A major pay rise for these workers is the final step to address gender undervaluation in the community sector and address gender inequity across the country.”