Equity Issues

Pay Equity – Activism Reaps Rewards

For decades Australian working women have pursued pay equity, it has been an incremental advancement and some would argue too long coming. However women have cause to be optimistic as in the past few years we have seen State Labor Governments investigate the causes of continued pay inequity. Whilst we have cause for optimism in the various State jurisdictions, unfortunately the same cannot be said for the Federal Workplace Relations regime, where it would seem that the Equal Remuneration Provisions of the Workplace Relations Act present many difficulties in running successful cases.

The renewed attempt to resolve the problem of pay equity came with the New South Wales Industrial Relations Act 1996 in which the then-Minister for Industrial Relations, Jeff Shaw, made provision for the Industrial Relations Commission to inquire into and resolve gender pay inequality. The NSW Pay Equity Inquiry 1998 researched ways of making progress on pay equity and in 2000 the Commission developed Equal Remuneration Principles, which allows for equal remuneration cases to be pursued. The first case taken was by the Public Services Association of New South Wales for State-employed Librarians and this resulted in their work being re-valued and in them receiving significant pay increases.

The knock on effect of the NSW initiative has been significant. Not long after Queensland conducted a Pay Equity Inquiry, which drew much upon the NSW inquiry and currently the Queensland Council of Unions is running the first cases under their newly developed Equal Remuneration Principal.

At the VTHC Conference the Victorian Minister announced that the Victorian Government would hold an independent Inquiry into Pay Equity. The Victorian Review will be undertaken by researchers and will be overseen by a working party of employer, union and government representatives. The Review has the task of assessing the effectiveness of the regulatory environment, the actions of Governments, business and unions in addressing pay equity and what actions can be taken to address pay inequity. Karen Batt, State Secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union had previously also been involved in lobbying the Victorian Government for a Pay Equity review of the Victorian Public Service.

The Western Australian Government when in opposition committed itself to setting up an inquiry into unfair discrimination in the workplace and it has now announced an independent Review looking at what causes the pay gap in Western Australia. The Tasmanian Government has also conducted a Review of pay inequity in that State.

Pay Equity remains an issue for all women workers. There are many causes of pay inequity; discrimination, sex segmentation of the workforce, lack of access to overaward payments, occupational under-valuation and failure to address the work-family life balance to name a few. The current gender wage gap is nationally about 17.3% with female ordinary time earnings being 82.7% of a male. The gender wage gap for public sector women is about 12.8%.

Women through their unions continue to fight for pay equity by taking cases such as those currently running for dental assistants, childcare workers and nurses. They have lobbied Governments for inquiries and for legislation and taken cases to tribunals in order to achieve justice and value for their work. Public sector women and their unions have been at the forefront of achieving rights that in many cases have flowed through to other sectors. It is important for public sector unions to remain at the vanguard in mobilising these efforts of achieving the aims of working women.

Resources:
For more information on this issue see Pay Equity Now in the PSI Newsletter (pdf File)

© 2001 Community & Public Sector Union - State Public Services Federation (CPSU-SPSF) - National Office

http://www.cpsu-spsf.asn.au/campaigns/women/20040401_189.html
Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005