... and ain't I a woman?: Equal pay victory
After a two-year battle, Sydney electronics manufacturer HPM has finally agreed to union demands for an enterprise bargaining agreement ensuring equal pay for work of equal value.
Women at this plant employed as process workers and packers were receiving less pay than their male counterparts, who work as general hands and storepeople. They are on the same award level, and their work has been assessed as being of equal value.
Not just relying on the Industrial Relation Commission, the HPM women workers, mainly migrants, also campaigned with strikes and picket lines over the period of the hearings.
HPM resisted a fair deal for employees. At one stage, it even sacked the male workers in an attempt to derail the equity case; it was later forced to reinstate them.
The victory consisted of a $20 weekly wage rise and a further 6.5% over the life of the two-and-a-half year agreement. The women will receive a lump sum in lieu of back pay. The agreement introduced a non-discriminatory classification structure in which a single rate is to be paid to all employees on the same award level.
Despite past equal pay legal victories, equal pay for work of equal value remains unresolved. Despite the equal pay rulings of 1969 and 1972, there remained significant differences in the wages for work of similar value. The campaigning continued, often in creative ways.
In 1970 Zelda D'Aprano and others organised an "equality ride" on a Melbourne tram; a group of equal pay campaigners refused to pay more than 75% of the adult tram fare to protest that working women received 75% of male wages.
Since then, not much has changed. Jeff Shaw, NSW industrial relations minister, released figures last year which showed that women working full time in NSW earned only 78.2% of average male earnings. Women earned 23% of the overtime pay and 55% of the over-award payments received by men.
The NSW Labor Council studied the difference in pay of traditional male and female jobs, each requiring similar training and education as well as skills and responsibility. The comparison excluded overtime earnings but included over-award payments. Workers in the predominantly female industry of child-care received 70.9% of the wages of (predominately male) fitters and turners in the metal industry.
The December 1998 report of the Ministerial Inquiry into Pay Equity confirmed the male-female wage differential in a range of occupations whose work value was similar in terms of responsibility, skills and training. It found that women generally earned less than men, and the undervaluation of women's work was a key factor. The report said that this could be the result of gendered assumptions in work value assessments, occupational segregation (which may cause female-dominated industries to be undervalued) and the poor bargaining position of female-dominated occupations and industries.
There is still a significant amount of catching up to be done. The clear evidence of unequal pay between women and men is only one example exposing the falsehood that the struggle for women's rights is over. International Women's Day will provide a provide a focus for the many demands of the women's liberation movement yet to be won. Get involved and make your voice heard. [See pages 18-19 for details of the International Women's Day march and rally closest to you.]
By Margaret Allum