FRAN HAYES

NATIONAL PAY EQUITY COALITION

FRAN HAYES

Background to NPEC

NPEC- who are we?
The National Pay Equity Coalition was formed in Sydney in 1988 to address the persistent gender pay gap in Australia. Its members consist of women who are union officials, a politician, policy officers, researchers, lecturers and independent consultants. Most have a strong background in industrial relations or employment issues.

Why are we concerned about pay equity?
Despite well publicised equal pay cases in 1969 and 1972, gaining real pay equity for Australian women has been elusive goal.

Full-time Australian women workers still earn only 82% of the weekly earnings of full-time male workers, and 90% of ordinary time non-managerial hourly earnings. If part-time workers are included in the equation, women earn only 66% of male weekly earnings.

We are concerned about this because women have as much need as men for financial security and the ability to contribute to their own and their families' economic well-being, and have as much right as men to look forward to a secure retirement where they will be able to meet their health, housing and lifestyle needs adequately. It has never been the case, and is even less so now, that women can assume they will have a man to support them for as long as they live.

The reasons for the persistent gender pay gap are complex. Apart from part-time work, other relevant factors are that women are under represented in senior management positions, women get far less overaward payments and perks than men get, and that women in Australia do different jobs than men do (mainly clerical, retail, personal services) and these jobs are more poorly paid. It is our contention that these jobs are poorly paid because they are undervalued, and not because they are inherently less skilled than jobs done by men.

How we work
A small community organisation, NPEC focuses its efforts strategically on influencing policy via:

• submissions to industrial tribunals (examples of submissions to tribunals: National Wage Cases, HREOC Inquiry into over-awards, Equal Pay Test Cases)
• Campaigning against industrial changes detrimental to women (examples of campaigning against industrial changes detrimental to women: the campaign against 1996 Workplace Relations Bill and 1999 'Second Wave' ,formed a coalition with other women's community groups to fight the Workplace Relations Bill in 1996 (WIRL)
• rallies
• media
• submissions and appearances before Senate Inquiries into proposed legislative changes
• representations, along with other women's groups, to the Minister, Peter Reith about our concerns
• lobbying politicians

Examples of lobbying:

1. NSW Pay Equity Inquiry- lobbying Government to conduct it, appearing before it, lobbying to have its recommendations implemented
2. lobbying the Australian Democrats on our concerns and desired amendments to the Workplace Relations Bill in 1996 (successful)

• and disseminating information on pay equity issues.

NPEC also builds coalitions with other organisations to advance the cause of pay equity and industrial justice for women. We have worked closely over many years with the Women's Electoral Lobby and the Business and Professional Women's Association on combined campaigns and projects related to pay equity. We have recently participated in the Round Table for Women's Community Organisations on the proposed federal industrial relations changes organised by the ACTU Women's Committee.

Recent key pay equity achievements

• 1998 NSW Pay Equity Inquiry and 2000 Equal Remuneration Principle
• Subsequent pay equity inquiries in other states and adoption of equivalent ER principles in some other States
• Greater awareness by industrial parties of pay equity issues
• Significant pay increases in undervalued female jobs, either through use of new Principle or through reference to the findings of the NSW Pay Equity Inquiry and Principle.

How the proposed IR changes will affect pay equity The current environment

NPEC is extremely concerned about the direction of the Federal Government's proposed industrial relations legislation. We see it as a threat to everything we have worked for during the past 17 years.

Just as we have begun to see the tide turn for pay equity for Australian women, these gains are to be torn away.

The IR changes- our concerns

The changes to be made to workplace relations laws in Australia will worsen wages, conditions and remove many employment rights for women.

CHANGES

In summary, the industrial changes being pursued by the federal Government will have three serious effects on women's pay:

• first, cutting back the powers of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, and the awards that it enforces, will disadvantage more women than men because the award system protects the wages of proportionally more women;
• second, destroying the safety net for collective agreements and AWAs will disadvantage women who rely on collective agreements and AWAs for their pay and conditions;
• third, abolishing the state industrial systems in favour of the federal system will wipe away the much stronger equal pay rights which have only just been won in those systems. Endorsed by Endorsed by
• Decentralisation of pay fixing

Australian women are better placed than women in many other countries, largely because of Australia's history of having a centralised wage fixing system. But, as we have seen, there is still a long way to go.

CENTRALISATION AND PAY EQUITY

NTRALISATION AND PAY EQUITY The international evidence primarily shows that the more centralised the industrial relations system, the better the pay equity result for women. MOVE TO DECENTRALISATION E TO DECENTRALISATION The Government is strongly committed to increasing the decentralisation of wages bargaining. The Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, has stated "We should be trying to move to an industrial relations system where the predominant instrument is the individual contract." (The Age, 19 February 2005).

For this reason, the Government is attacking both the award system and collective bargaining, and making it easier for employees to be pressured into signing AWAs as an alternative to awards and agreements. The Government has also announced that it will reduce the current standards for collective agreements and AWAs.

• Attacks on the award system

Despite the growth of enterprise bargaining and Australian Workplace Agreements, 1.6 million Australian working people (19.9% of workers) still rely only on awards to protect their pay and conditions, and 60% of these are women. They are generally found in industries where women are heavily concentrated, including accommodation, cafes and restaurants, retail trade and health and community services. So any attack on the award system, particularly on minimum rates, is likely to have a disproportionate effect on women's pay.

The Government is proposing to reduce the benefits available under awards by taking measures which will reduce the real value of minimum award rates over time and remove conditions from awards.

The Howard laws will effectively gut the award system. Employers will be able to force many workers on to individual contracts, known as Australian Workplace Agreements.

Workplace Agreements

By removing the No Disadvantage Test individual contracts will no longer be measured against award standards. Workers forced onto individual contracts now risk having all their award entitlements reduced to these five minimums.

Workers who are able to remain under the award system will have their wage rates set by the new Fair Pay Commission rather than the independent Australian Industrial Relations Commission. These workers will have a number of current conditions removed from their awards.

• Reduction of the award safety net

COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS AND AWAS

The Government has announced that it will drastically strip back the standard which collective and individual agreements must meet to be registered by an independent tribunal. Until now, both types of agreements have had to pass the No Disadvantage Test in relation to awards.

Awards currently contain award rates of pay and conditions included in the 20 allowable matters, set by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The new standard against which agreements will be measured will include only five minimums: the minimum award rates set by the Fair Pay Commission and a bare four matters set directly by the Government via legislation. Women workers employed under AWAs and collective agreements, as well as those reliant on awards only, are likely to suffer lower wages and poorer conditions as a result of these measures.

• Attacks on collective bargaining

In support of its strategy to encourage direct bargaining between employers and employees rather than collective bargaining, the Government is planning to make it much more difficult for unions to undertake collective bargaining or organise action in support of collective bargaining.

Undermining collective agreements in favour of AWAs will generally mean lower pay for employees, especially women employees. Recently released ABS data indicates that women employees on AWAs earn 11% less per hour than women on collective agreements. Furthermore, the gender pay gap is 10% greater under AWAs than it is under collective agreements.

DESTRUCTION OF THE SAFETY

• Abolition of the State industrial systems and limitations on the Federal system now and more so in the future

The Government is proposing to abolish state industrial commissions, thereby consolidating the federal Government's control of industrial relations matters.

This change threatens important gains for pay equity achieved in recent years in the state systems. Beginning with the ground-breaking NSW Pay Equity Inquiry in the late 1990s, a number of states have held pay equity inquiries to analyse the nature and causes of pay inequity in their award systems. As a result of these inquiries, the state industrial systems of New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania have adopted new equal remuneration principles. These principles provide a vehicle for increasing award rates of pay in female dominated jobs and industries where it can be shown that women's work has been undervalued.

The principles adopted by these states provide advantages over the federal system's equal pay provisions, which require proof that gender pay differences are the result of outright discrimination against women- a much more difficult thing to prove.

Under the new state principles, women (for example, librarians, library assistants and archivists in NSW) have already received significant increases in award pay. There are many more female dominated occupations which could benefit from the use of these principles, and this will never occur if the state industrial systems are abolished.

After years of fighting for equality, women stand to lose advances in pay equity, employment rights such as paid maternity leave, superannuation, penalty rates for casual work, work and family entitlements, unfair dismissal rights, and an independent way of setting a fair minimum wage. The Government argues that it is giving workers freedom and flexibility. By taking away rights women will lose wages and conditions, freedom and flexibility.

The progress that Australian women have made in their pursuit of equality and rights in the workforce is now at risk.

Our campaign against the changes

What we are doing now

Community information

• brochures (provided)
• talkback shows
• prepare media items
• conference presentations
• encourage people to contact Federal politicians about their concerns on the impact on women
• Work with ACTU Women's Committee
• Work in coalition with other women's organisations and peak groups of women's community organisations
• Current Senate inquiry into Workplace Agreements- submission and prepared to appear