It's official: women get a raw deal from WorkChoices

What Women Want, the Report, released today, shows that under the WorkChoices industrial relations system women are worse off in pay terms compared with men, since WorkChoices was introduced. This is so whatever their occupation or education status, and includes professional and managerial women as well as those in lower paid, less skilled work.

The impact is worst for young women with fewer bargaining skills, and for all women living in regional and country areas away from mining developments. The impact on indigenous women and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds was also negative.

The National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) conducted Australia wide consultations with over 60 women’s organisations from December 2006 through May 2007. These round table forums have shown that Australian women, whatever their occupation and income status, are sceptical about the claims made for a better workplace for women under WorkChoices as it is now operating.

What Women Want, the Report from the NFAW, based on these consultations, was launched in Melbourne on June 2 by Judith van Unen, a Melbourne businesswoman and past president of Business and Professional Women Australia. The launch followed a two day meeting of those involved in its research and compilation to finalise the report and its recommendations.

WWW provides evidence that individual workplace agreements result in a growth in the gender wage gap.

In WA , which has been to the forefront of current political debate about the value of Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs),women there now earn $.75 for every $1 earned by men in comparable occupations.

The gender wage gap is worse in casual and part time employment, where wage levels have stagnated in sectors such as retail and hospitality where women predominate. WA women in professional and managerial occupations also are doing less well than their male counterparts.

Professor Alison Preston from Curtin University who conducted research for NFAW, Womens Electoral Lobby and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) showing the gender gap in wages, has passed it onto the Australian Fair Pay Commission established by the Government under WorkChoices .

But there has been no response from the Commission or the Government on how to rectify this situation.

“Even though the Commonwealth has now decided to strengthen the ‘safety net’ for workers earning less than $75,000 p.a., there’s no evidence of any Government recognition of the issue, nor of plans to deal with the growing gender gap in wages,” Marie Coleman of NFAW said at the launch of the Report.

Marie Coleman , who attended all the public meetings and helped write the report , said that a similar loss of wages and in family friendly conditions occurred in New Zealand following the introduction by the National Government of an individual workplace agreement regime similar to WorkChoices.

“The New Zealand experience shows that a return to collective bargaining at the workplace during the Clark Labour Government marginally improved the gender wage gap, but didn’t overcome the losses women had experienced under the former individual workplace agreement regime,” she said.

“ NZ women never did recoup all of the family friendly conditions they had been forced to trade-off.”

The What Women Want Report makes 10 recommendations to meet the WorkChoice goals of a ‘more flexible, simpler and fairer system of workplace relations for Australia…to improve productivity, increase wages, balance work and family life and reduce unemployment.’

They cover more auditing and recording of pay data, more information on workplace rights, safeguards for lower paid workers, reinstatement of penalty rates and holiday work compensation, and paid maternity leave, which is ‘critical to women’s participation in the workforce, but is in danger of being traded off against other terms and conditions enjoyed by men.’

Report and papers

The NFAW website has additional information on how women are being treated in the workplace under WorkChoices:

• What Women Want, the Report
• the WA research – Women’s Employment Status Key Indicators (WESKI).
• The papers given to the roundtable forums in each state and territory

Media contacts and more information

Marie Coleman ( 041 4483067) and Judith van Unen (041 2483519) are available for interview and further comments. They can also provide contact details for interviews with women from all states who worked on the report and who attended the Melbourne forum.