Women

Pay equity assaulted by award modernisation process

The Federal Government is conducting an Inquiry into pay equity and associated issues related to increasing female participation in the workforce. The ASU, other unions, women's lobby groups, employers and employer groups have been making representations to the Committee.

On 31 March 2009 the ASU National President, Henrietta Moran, National Vice President and Branch Secretary of the ASU Central and Southern Queensland Branch, Julie Bignell, and National Industrial Officer Jo Justo attended the Brisbane sitting of the House Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/ewr/index.htm

The Terms of Reference for the Inquiry include but are not limited to:

• The adequacy of current data to reliably monitor employment changes that may impact on pay equity issues;
• The need for education and information among employers, employees and trade unions in relation to pay equity issues;
• Current structural arrangements in the negotiation of wages that may impact disproportionately on women;
• The adequacy of recent and current equal remuneration provisions in state and federal workplace relations legislation;
• The adequacy of current arrangements to ensure fair access to training and promotion for women who have taken maternity leave and/or returned to work part time and/or sought flexible work hours; and
• The need for further legislative reform to address pay equity in Australia.

National Vice President Julie Bignell told the Committee:

"One of the key female occupational Awards in this country, covering around 12% of the working population, will be the Clerks Private Sector Award, and this comes into operation on 1 January 2010.

"This Award has not been benchmarked against any comparator occupations.  It is simply an amalgam of classifications and rates of pay made necessary because of the Government's desire to collapse many awards into one.  There has been no examination of this award in a pay equity sense, and indeed, the award will result in a decrease in take-home pay for many Australian women, and men, once it comes into operation.

"We say that the award modernisation process must be subjected to the rigour of an independent and proper test, and we also say that key awards which designate minimum conditions for such large parts of the population, so disproportionately female, should be determined on the basis of a major occupational award covering most of those workers except where employers and unions agree otherwise.  As it is, this Residual award will result in the scattering of clerical work across a range of industries, thereby losing important reference points in classification measures for the population.

"We also say that a modern award system must recognise skills, and knowledge, not job titles which are subject to the vagaries of employers."

As the transcripts become available from these hearings they will be available from the ASU website.

Submissions to this Inquiry currently registered can be found at http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/ewr/payequity/tor.htm