Equal pay?
In the debate on strategies for equal pay for equal worth for many women workers, this background research by Christine Short and Margaret Nowak is invaluable.
‘Persistent Australian Gender Wage Inequality 1990 to 2003: Stakeholders’ Views of Why and How’ Journal of Industrial Relations 2009 51: 262-278.
http://jir.sagepub.com/content/vol51/issue2/
Christine Short’s new book is “Why and How Women are Still Paid Less?” 2009 VDM Verlag (tagged under gender studies).
This is one journalists reporting today in the Daily Telegraph on some of the public debate
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/suedunlevy/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/women_dont_have_the_power_to_crack_the_glass_ceiling/
The ACTU Pay Equity and Female Workforce Participation Submission 27 October, 2008
argues that
‘government must reform the federal equal remuneration regime. The new regime must be a proactive framework which addresses pay inequity through legislation, enforceable regulations and education together with practical support from public institutions.
Reforms proposed in this submission include:
maintaining a decent safety net of minimum wages and conditions
improving the capacity for women to bargain for over award wages and conditions
providing remedies to address the pay gap between those employees who do and those who do not have access to collective bargaining
improving access to flexible work arrangements and provisions for carers
introducing mandatory annual reporting of basic remuneration data for all employers
instigating regulatory measures to prevent pay inequity
broadening the capacity of Fair Work Australia (FWA) to address pay equity
providing FWA with broad discretion and powers to make any orders it sees fit to remedy pay inequity
establishing a specialist Pay Equity Division which is proactive in addressing the gender gap and which integrates the monitoring, compliance and remedial aspects of the pay equity scheme
establishing a Pay Equity Commissioner within FWA.’
http://www.actu.asn.au/Publications/PayEquityandFemaleWorkforceParticipation.aspx
The unions are campaigning with community organisation support in the Equal Pay Alliance.
They asked Tanya Plibersek, Minister for the Status of Women for support for the Equal Pay Alliance formed in order to promote equal pay and equal employment opportunities for all Australians.
‘As you know, many people in Australia believe women won equal pay in the 70s, but they are wrong.
It’s almost 40 years since women were officially granted equal pay for equal work by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. Yet, a significant gender pay gap in Australia persists.
• Women in full-time paid work still earn 17% less than men or one million dollars less over a lifetime;
• While women are now more likely to have a tertiary qualification than men, women graduates will earn $2,000 less than male graduates and $7,400 less by the fifth year after graduation;
• Fewer than 2% of ASX 200 companies have a female chief executive officer and only 1 in 12 board directors are women; and
• Women retire with less than half the amount of savings in their superannuation accounts compared with men.
Our labour market and social structures continue to discriminate against women in employment.
On one hand, women have access to unprecedented levels of education and employment.
On the other, women continue to shoulder most of the unpaid housework, care of children and care of other dependents with a critical lack of access to childcare services and flexible work arrangements, to enable them to balance those two roles.
A lack of access to flexible work arrangements also presents a barrier for men to take on a greater share of caring responsibilities. This maintains the status quo of women being disproportionately responsible for caring responsibilities and consequently disadvantaged in the workplace.
We believe this inequity is not acceptable in modern Australia.
We have formed this Equal Pay Alliance to promote equal pay and employment opportunity for all individuals in Australia.
September 1st, is Equal Pay Day. On average, it takes women 14 months to earn the same amount that men earn in 12 months. Starting from the new financial year on 1st July, Equal Pay Day commemorates the day when women’s earnings “catch up” to men’s.
With your support, we pledge to work towards the eradication of unequal pay through the provision of genuine choices and opportunities for women. In particular we will campaign for:
• Meaningful reporting by employers of equal pay and employment opportunities;
• Regular independent monitoring and reporting to the Australian Parliament of progress to achieve gender equality, including progress towards achieving equal pay;
• A greater role for government agencies in auditing, promoting and implementing equal pay and employment opportunity programs in workplaces;
• Proper valuation and funding of wages and conditions for work traditionally carried out by women;
• Better regulation of flexible work arrangements for women and men with caring responsibilities and increased protection from discrimination on the grounds of family and carer responsibilities;
• Improved quality, accessible and affordable childcare including after school hours and vacation care; and
• Improved equal employment opportunity practices in workplaces including accredited work related training and professional development.
We look forward to the support of the Rudd government, employers and the community to achieve these reforms so our daughters won’t need to work an extra two months to earn as much as their brothers.
Yours sincerely, Members of the Equal Pay Alliance (thus far)
Assoc/Prof Patricia Todd, Faculty of Business, UWA Business School
Association of Women Educators (AWE)
Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)
Australian Women’s Coalition (AWC)*
Business and Profession Women Australia (BPW)
Carers Australia
National Council of Women Australia (NCWA)
National Foundation of Australian Women (NFAW)
National Pay Equity Coalition (NPEC)
Professor Alison Preston, Graduate School of Business, Curtin University
Robyn Gaspari (Conflict Resolving Women’s Network)
Sara Charlesworth RMIT
Security4Women*
Sex Discrimination Commissioner
South Australia Working Women’s Centre
The Women and Work Research Group (WWRG)
The Work and Organisational Studies Student Society, University of Sydney (WOSOC)
VIEW clubs of Australia
Women in Adult and Vocational Education (WAVE)
Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL)
Women’s Information (WIRE)
WomenSpeak Network*
Work and Family Round Table
YWCA
2020Women
(* representing over 70 organisations)
Women workers are losing out: new global report on the gender gap is a wake up call for Australian employers, say unions
29 October, 2009 ACTU Media Release
Australian employers must do more to encourage women’s participation in the workforce and close the gender pay gap, following a major international report showing Australia is slipping further down world rankings on some critical indicators, say unions.
Australia lags behind developing nations such as South Africa, the Philippines, Lesotho and Sri Lanka on the overall rankings, according to the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Index released this week.
On the critical measure of labour force participation, Australia has fallen from 40 to 50, with the female-to-male ratio stagnating at 0.84.
And on the measure of wage equality for similar work, Australia ranks only 60th in the world.
ACTU President Sharan Burrow said the results indicated that the global economic downturn had halted progress on equality in the workplace for Australian women.
A recent report by The Australia Institute found that women’s participation in the workforce and their financial position was likely to worsen as a result of the downturn.
“It is a sorry state of affairs that one of the wealthiest nations in the world should be so far down the rankings for women’s workforce participation and earning capacity,” Ms Burrow said.
“It is clear that employers are not doing their bit to close the gap.
“In 1998, the Coalition Government drastically weakened the then-Affirmative Action Act by watering down obligations and accountability of employers.
“It is time for tougher monitoring and enforcement of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act, including naming of employers who fail to comply and an enhanced role for the Fair Work Ombudsman to investigate breaches of the Act.
“The disadvantaged and precarious position in the workforce that women have makes them particularly vulnerable to lay-offs in economic downturns.
“Over the course of her career, an Australian woman will earn $1 million less than a man, and will retire with less than half the savings in her superannuation account.
“The financial crisis has further slowed any progress to achieving true equity in the workplace, and the great risk is that inequality for women and girls will become embedded.
“Closing the gender gap will produce a more prosperous and cohesive society.”
it is yet to be tested, but the DPM’s FWA does not seem to be much assistance despite the promise
(see this blog). As well, it most difficult to exercise the right to strike for equal pay.
The campaign continues…
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