There’s been very little commentary so far on the implications of the Federal government’s IR changes for women. Fortunately, the Evatt Foundation has published an article on pay equity and the IR agenda by Meg Smith.
She identifies three key reasons why the changes will be inimical to equal pay:
The anticipated legislative changes pose three particular difficulties for the pay equity aspirations of women:
- Firstly, cutting back the powers of the AIRC and the further weakening of the award system – and with it minimum award wages and a system of open hearings – will disadvantage more women than it does men, because the award system protects the wages of proportionally more women. This is not to mention the weakening of the current albeit limited standards that apply to part-time and particularly casual work. Already 71 per cent of part-time jobs are filled by women and two thirds of casual work is part-time causal work (ABS, 6105.0; Campbell, 2004).
- Secondly the proposed changes will weaken the opportunity to improve the existing equal remuneration measures, and to use those measures to exert reform at an industry or award level;
Both of these weaknesses reside in the fracturing of the measures that are key to the setting of equitable wages and conditions and which underpin any progress towards gender pay equity.
- Thirdly the proposed changes, through their threat to state industrial systems, will remove the stronger equal remuneration measures that are now in place in the state systems of New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania (and which are planned in Western Australia).
The danger in this last measure lies in the threat to the advances in equal pay measures made in state industrial tribunals in the last five years. The initiatives for these reforms rested with the plateau in Australia’s gender pay equity performance – between 1981-2004 the gender pay equity ratio increased from 74.6 per cent to 82 per cent, an increase of only 7.4 percentage points over a twenty three years period (full-time adult non-managerial employees in the private sector).
This plateau is striking, even allowing for the aggregate nature of gender pay equity ratios. Domestic and international research highlights the potential for women’s relative pay to improve due to falling pay among low-paid men (as they enter feminised industries) and for ratios to mask growing income dispersion for both women and men. Additionally, some part of this increase in women’s earnings post-1981 is a reflection of women’s increased participation in higher education and an acceleration of credentials.
The measures in New South Wales and Queensland in particular provide a clear step forward in redressing the undervaluation of feminised work. Undervaluation of work within awards has become the litmus test in these jurisdictions, and for the first time we have had tribunal assessment of the contribution to undervaluation provided by the characterisation of work as women’s work, occupational segregation and features concerning the organisation of women’s labour. Within NSW at the Inquiry level we have had consideration of the undervaluation of child care workers, librarians, clothing industry outworkers, process workers in the seafood industry and hairdressers. These state measures should be the starting point for the reform of the existing federal measures – the irony is that without activism and intervention they will become a casualty.
What is at stake is the institutional measures that are required to guarantee women’s economic independence. Unchecked, low wages and the undervaluation of feminised work means successive waves of lost earnings, lower levels of savings and lower levels of superannuation.
Having worked as a consultant to the Queensland Department of Industrial Relations on the equal pay measures Meg discusses, I can only echo her comments that it will be a tragedy if such reforms are a casualty of the Federal changes, rather than a catalyst for serious attention to this issue at Commonwealth level.
There is no doubt many women will be on the losing side of the Howard IR agenda. Western Australian women have experienced some of what is to come already. WA has the largest gender pay gap in the country at around 25% whereas nationally the figure is around 16%. The figures show a massive increase in the gender pay gap in WA during the Court/Kiereth years in the 90s when WA had individual workplace agreements measured against minimal legislative conditions and a minimum wage lower than the rest of the nation. Essentially what Howard is wanting to introduce for everyone.
For those in Perth who want to know more about the impact on women of the IR changes, UnionsWA is holding a Women’s Community Forum on Monday 12 September at 6pm at the Loftus Community Centre.
Another Perthite! I might get along to that forum.
My question is, what do we do about it? Is unionising the key for low paid workers like childcare, munfacturering ie?
I think unionising is part of the answer, but another problem is that often “women’s work” is harder to unionise.
Either they are in smaller groups (shop assistants, cleaners etc) who work in different places or at different times, so organising is more difficult; or they work in areas where there is more reluctance (even guilt) to take industrial action (nurses, carers etc).
Also, we need to be a bit careful about WA figures, as sometimes it includes the mining industry, which is going to skew the result a bit. Of course, even 16% is appalling!
Thanks for the heads-up, Clare.
Some attention must also be given to the impact of the proposed IR changes on non-wage components of working conditions, especially those affecting actual and prospective parents.
There is already evidence that the shift from centralised wage and condition fixing to regulated enterprise bargaining under the auspices of Accords Mk. III through to Mk. VI led to workplaces where mothers were in the minority voting for EBAs which cashed out leave entitlements (see B. Pocock (1997), Strife!, for examples). The pressure (and temptation) to cash out leave entitlements can only be greater under individual negotiation of AWAs, especially with younger childless workers for whom the benefits of a higher immediate cashflow will probably loom larger than the cost of losing entitlements which they may or may not need a few years down the track.
Also, is it just my malicious imagination, or has there been a lack of attention to the effects of IR changes in the early 1990s on gender equity in pay and conditions because some of these changes were the doing of a Federal Labor government and the ACTU under Accord auspices?
I think it’s your imagination, Paul. There’s been a lot of academic work done on it, it was a big debate at the time publicly, and the Labor governments have acted on it at state level. The lack of public debate over the current federal changes in this respects probably reflects the general conservatism in the media politics of gender at the moment.
I suggest you have a look at Appendix A to the Qld Government submission in the link above where I discuss the impact of the Accord and EB Principles and the Keating IR Reform Act.
Will do, Mark. However the paper at this link:
http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/depts/SML/Airaanz/old/conferce/adelaide1999/pdf/pdf/Reimann.pdf
suggests that it mightn’t just be my imagination. What do you think of Reimann’s argument?
Paul, I wasn’t saying that EB hasn’t had a negative effect on the gender gap, just that I think there are reasons why this hasn’t been highlighted more other than ALP allegiances of researchers!
That looks like a rigorous paper. It’s a pity that the Commonwealth government never repeated the AWIRS survey, making data for more recent trends harder to gather. However, there’s an extensive literature on pay equity which isn’t too hard to access.
The structural factors I outlined in my paper continue to operate. Among these is the disinclination of some unions properly to represent their female members, and the relative bargaining strengths of unions in female dominant industries (normally defined as industries with more than 60% female workforce).
However, there’s also no question that unionised female workers do better, and that the legislative changes made by Labor state governments in Qld, WA and Tassie in particular represent the way forward for redressing the gender gap – in particular in the question of work value enquiries which properly value skills in female dominant industries and occupations. Nothing of the sort will be possible under the federal legislation.
There is much more valuable research happening on the Internet — concerning men getting value for money.
Yet Another Woman Nitpicking
Since men have been reduced to commodity status as sperm donors and walking wallets, I think a project to evaluate the value for money supplied by women is very apt.
I don’t support that website as a general approach to relationships, but as a puncturer of over-inflated female egos it might have its uses.
Also, it could be potentially a guide to dating for those men who run into women who use “The Rules” as their template.
I agree. If only we could return to the good old days when women earned their own money and purchased sperm at a fair price…
EP anyone who uses The Rules as their template deserves what they get. If I had followed that template I wouldn’t be married to the wonderful man I am (eight years and counting). I was horrified to think what women were getting themselves and their partners into by following that guff. Sure you’d end up married and if that was your only goal, well you’d achieve it. But if you wanted to be married to someone you loved, well chances not so good I would think.
I think those good old days may “return” sooner than you expect …
But how much of it is your defective stuff, EP? A woman’s gotta know she’s getting the full quid, not a squib.
You’re so predictable, Fyobore.
I’m disappointed, Evil Pee. No unfunny two-liners?
“…Fyobore.”
EP? You spelt ‘Evil Pundit’ incorrectly.
Maybe I should write a whiny, self-indulgent blog entry called My stalker: the case of Fyobore.
There you go, Weevil Punnet, always playing the victim. I’m not stalking you – don’t let your paranoia delude you into flattering yourself.
A serious point, however: how would we differentiate that particular whiny, self-indulgent entry from your usual screed?
No women save nuerotic new york singles employ the Rules. Given that our fair continent is not exactly overrun with nuerotic new york singles, I think the men of Australia are free from the tyranny of that particular (long since past) fad. (BTW, the nuerotic new york single woman book du jour is ‘He’s just not that into you’)
Secondly, EP, why don’t you practise what you preach? You impugn all women by suggesting we’re all money-grubber sperm diggers. Yet whenever women talk about men (at all, even individual men who have nothing to do with you at all) you claim misandry and sob about how oppressed you are.
I can see the development of an international black market in sperm. With governments ruling out privacy for donors, there legal sources will dry up.
There has already been a case of a sperm donor being forced to pay child support to a lesbian mother (in Sweden — where else?). With such precedents around, few blokes will be coming out in public as donors.
How boring to date a man like EP, counting costs all the time and worrying about value for his money! I’d be leaving him pretty quickly to Mrs Palmer and her five daughters, because they’re the only ones who would tolerate it. Sounds like he has a pretty good relationship with them already.
I mean sperm thieves. Not sperm diggers. I don’t even know what a sperm digger could possibly be.
Kate, I like to use feminist tactics against feminists.
It’s one of my hobbies.
ItÄôs one of my hobbies.
What are your others? Licking your balls and wallowing in self-pity?
Nah, Robert, that’s his profession.
Baiting lefties. They always bite.
Speak for yourself, you mangy commiecat.
“They always bite.”
but I haven’t seen you land any yet, dear boy.
I’ve got Fyobore dancing like a puppet on a string. He replies to every post, just can’t help it.
That’s not string you’re pulling, EP…
Oh, alright then, prove you’re the bigger blogger by not having the last word.
You know, a free market in semen brings up a lot of questions. If it’s to be deregulated, and brought out of the dark old days where producers are able to tightly regulate supply, will there also be a market in sperm futures and derivatives?
Will the sperm infrastructure and provision arms have to be split, Telstra-style?
If only it were a viable source of combustible fuel for power generation. The male blogosphere could produce enough to bankrupt BHP Billiton.
Personally, I’d also like to see a de-regulated sperm market, where men could sell their sperm to the highest bidders. I think it would have a tremendous effect on quality control and would improve services immensely.
The free market almost always provides the optimal solution.
Absolutely. Market mechanisms are the most efficient way to allocate sperm to their highest value use. You’d also see a big reduction in sperm theft from marginal suppliers.
Of course a deregulated sperm market would also require the abolition of cosy State-sanctioned non-market sperm cartels.
Bourgeois marriage, unfortunately, would have to be outlawed.
Clearly, Liam, you don’t understand the free market.
Marriage systems would of course compete with the other enterprises in a free sperm market. It’s your totalitarian leftist instincts that give rise to your reflexive desire to regulate people’s lives.
Sperm Wars
But EP, bourgeois marriage excludes other competitors. You know, monogamy and all that. In a free market husbands would have to compete with every other supplier, thus defeating one of the main purposes of marriage—the production of children.
Of course, you as a tomcat probably just don’t understand monogamy.
No, Liam, as a lefty you don’t understand the concept of individual choice. If a man and a woman enter into an individual contract regarding the supply of sperm, that’s their right.
Which, of course, brings us full circle. A free market in sperm would also be accompanied by a free market in wombs, thus giving rise to organisations that provide comparative reviews and value rating services.
However, EP, sperm, once it exits the body, is a saleable item that is a product.
Wombs, on the other hand, are currently only viable within the body of women as an organ. So if you start allowing the free market in wombs, you’ll have to allow a free market in all other body organs. This would mean you could sell your kidney to a person who needed a kidney transplant, for instance.
I’m sure everyone is all for that idea, right?
You’re obviously a late convert to free markets, commiecat, as you’ve got it wrong, again. Wombs aren’t generally tradeable. The correct analogy is to ova, which is what you have on your face when you look in the mirror.
Wombs are usually rented, not sold (except in some Islamic countries, where the going price is around 20 camels).
Of course, when artificial wombs are developed, they’ll be sold as well.
You’ll still need that pesky egg though, EP. Unless they perfect human cloning.
The womb and ova are usually supplied by the same vendor as a package deal, though there are a few supplied separately.
Prices have been kept artificially high in Western countries by government intervention, but with falling demand and the spread of biotechnology, the market will probably become more competitive over the next decade or so.
From the Life of Brian (my constant source of wisdom)