mmg.com.au

Fair Work Australia last week decided to award pay rises of between 23 and 45 per cent to 150,000 social and community sector workers across the country.

The decision impacts people who work in traditionally ‘caring’ jobs, such as working with people with disabilities, running homeless shelters and working with victims of domestic or sexual violence.

The majority of these workers are women and the FWA decision was described as a step towards gender pay equity by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency.

It also effects neighbourhood house staff members and co-ordinators like Ms O’Byrne and two part-time assistants at Echuca Neighbourhood House.

‘‘The increase has to be passed on, but the State Government must fund that increase...at this stage they haven’t committed to do that,’’ Ms O’Byrne said.

‘‘Otherwise neighbourhood houses will be disadvantaged and will have to cut back on hours or restructure the way they run.’’

She said a lot of neighbourhood houses were already under-funded, with some houses only funded for 10 or 15 hours of co-ordination (Echuca is funded for 30 hours).

A spokesman for the Victorian Government said the FWA decision had major financial and service provision implications for Victoria, which it would carefully consider.

He said it was vital the Federal Government provided a substantial and ongoing financial commitment to help meet the very heavy costs imposed on state governments and non-government organisations.

Ms O’Byrne said the house had about 20 active volunteers and constantly sought funding to continue and expand its services.

She said about 400 people would come through the house in a week.

Ms O’Byrne has worked in neighbourhood houses for 12 years, 10 of those at Echuca Neighbourhood House, and said she did it because she loved it.

‘‘It’s challenging, it’s varied, every neighbourhood house belongs to its own community in its own way, so we can be very flexible and diverse in what we offer,’’ she said.

She said the house provided important services such as education courses that were available to people on low incomes.‘

Being able to successfully offer no-interest loans for people in the community was one of the things she was most proud of, with the loans program about to reach 1000 participants.

Ms O’Byrne is a horticulturist; a yoga and meditation teacher; a massage therapist; a reflexologist and worked at the Girgarre and Tongala neighbourhood houses before coming to Echuca.