Linda Waldron
The Howard government's new workplace relations laws, which will come into effect at the end of this month, represents a devastating new attack on the work and family life of women workers. Ellen Kleimaker, women's and equity officer at Victorian Trades Hall Council, told Green Left Weekly: "Work Choices, the Welfare to Work legislation and the fact that childcare is increasingly unaffordable for many women constitute the Howard government's multi-pronged assault on women and their families."
The Work Choices legislation changes the way minimum wages are set, restricts trade union access to and representation of workers, removes many advances in access to equal pay and "family friendly" conditions and removes unfair dismissal protection from many workers. It is low-paid and unorganised workers who will be hardest hit under the new laws.
Almost a quarter of Australian families with children are sole-parent families. The Welfare to Work legislation dictates that single parents must look for 15 hours of paid work once their youngest child turns eight. This will mean that many single parents must re-enter the work force with limited experience and skills and significant childcare responsibilities. They will be coerced into accepting the most low-paid jobs with minimal conditions or risk losing their benefits.
In 1996 the poverty-rate for female-headed single parent households was 27.6%, which was 10% higher than other households. The low pay and unfriendly family conditions of accessible jobs for such women often means the family is financially worse off than if these women had remained on benefits. Suzanne Hammond from the Womens Electoral Lobby concludes that for many women workers it will not be a case of "take it or leave it" but "take it or lose your benefit".
Currently women workers comprise 45% of the work force, but the overwhelming majority are concentrated in low-paid employment. The incidence of low pay for all female workers is 41% compared to 29% of all workers.
In 2004, although comprising 47% of the work force, women made up 65% (1.5 million) of those earning less than $500 per week. While 36% of full-time workers are women, they make up 45% of the full-time work force earning less than $500 per week. Forty six per cent of women workers worked part-time, compared with only 15% of male workers.
The majority of low-paid women workers have dependent children and many are single mothers. For workers with young dependent children a crucial issue is the overall length of working hours, rewards and disincentives for work at unsociable hours; some control over setting of rostered hours, due notice about change in hours and predictability of working hours so childcare can be organised.
In 2002 64% of Australian employees regularly worked outside standard hours. The proportion of Australian employees working more than 50 hours a week increased from 15.3% in 1987 to 20% in 2000. Among industrialised nations only the US and New Zealand match Australia's proportion of employees working long hours.
Recent research demonstrates that unstable, unsociable and long working hours increase divorce rates and cause a diminished capacity for caring for infants and young children. Working non-standard hours also increase the risk of psychological and physical ailments such as depression, fatigue and cardiovascular disease.
The Work Choices Act will encourage an acceleration in long, family unfriendly hours of work by replacing the "no disadvantage test" with the "fair pay and conditions standard". The no disadvantage test meant that any trade-offs negotiated with employers in working conditions could not be seen to disadvantage the employee. The new standard has only five allowable matters in determining new enterprise agreements. These include four weeks annual leave (with a cash-in option for two of those four weeks); personal carers leave (including sick leave); unpaid parental leave; maximum hours of work averaged over a 12-month period; and minimum wages.
The fair pay and conditions standard allows for a minimum hourly rate with ordinary hours of work specified at 38 hours per week averaged over 12 months where not otherwise specified. This means that for those employees working where only the minimum standards apply, hours of work can vary widely on a daily or weekly basis.
Pru Goward, the federal sex discrimination commissioner, told a Senate hearing in November 2005 that the "provision of greater than minimum conditions is conducive to, and necessary for, family functioning such as: the right to request part-time work and have it reasonably considered... the right to have certainty of hours included in work contracts, which is especially important for mothers with child-care arrangements to meet; and the right to be paid overtime rates for working excess hours, which is especially important for fathers who work long hours at overtime rates not only to put food on the table but... to enable their wives and partners not to work — in effect, to enable them to be full-time parents".
As well as reducing the number of allowable matters in negotiating new agreements, the Work Choices Act expressly favours negotiating individual contracts instead of collective agreements.
Women on individual contracts (AWAs) in 2003 were paid 11% less than women on collective agreements. Women on individual agreements received 80% of the male wage, compared with women on collective agreements who received 90% of the male wage. While awards retain provision for penalty rates, shift and overtime loadings the new legislation do not requite that AWAs do so or that pay rates compensate for lost conditions.
The Work Choices Act expressly supports the proposition that an employer may refuse to hire a worker who does not sign an AWA. The report of the 2005 Senate enquiry into workplace agreements observed "the only option for non-managerial employees, particularly women, casual and part-time employees is to accept an AWA".
The Work Choices Act discourages workers from challenging agreements forced on them by employers by exempting workplaces with less than 100 employees from unfair dismissal claims. The new laws also introduce provisions for termination of employment "for operational reasons". This term is not identical with "genuine redundancy" and so any employer can be shielded from unfair dismissal claims by arguing the termination was for operational reasons. The test for whether "operational reasons" apply will rely on evidence the employer can easily manipulate or generate. Women workers who have changing family circumstances could easily be dismissed on the grounds that they are obstructing the "operational" needs of the employer.
One of Work Choices Act's fundamental changes to industrial relations is the dismantling of the arbitration system by restricting powers of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) and establishing the Australian Fair Pay Commission. The AFPC will be the principle body for setting the minimum wage.
Under the previous system, the AIRC was legally bound to consider the needs of working families when setting the minimum wage. The 1979 maternity test leave case ensured the AIRC was required to "take account of the principles embodied in the Family Responsibilities Convention, in particular those relating to: preventing discrimination against workers who have family responsibilities; or helping workers to reconcile their employment and family responsibilities".
The AFPC has the objective of "promoting economic prosperity and job creation" rather than "economic prosperity and welfare", as was the case with the AIRC under the 1996 Workplace Relations Act.
Unlike the AIRC, there is no obligation on the new AFPC to hold public hearings or hear from workers affected by its decisions. Nor is there any appeals process for AFPC decisions.
Kleimaker believes the total effect of the Work Choices legislation will be to make workplaces more violent for women workers. The permanent work force will be largely reduced to the higher more powerful positions and these will face increasing stress and reduced working conditions. Kleimaker argues that they may play out their frustrations on more vulnerable workers through bullying and intimidation.
Because union activity is severely restricted under the Work Choices Act, more women workers will have to submit to such treatment or risk losing their job.
Among women workers, non-Anglo-Celtic migrants will be the hardest hit by the legislation's restrictions on union organising. Aside from suffering the general disadvantages of women in the workplace such as insecure, low-paid work, limited bargaining power and significant family care responsibilities, migrant women workers also face further disadvantages. Such women may have interrupted or non-existent educational opportunities; lack of English language proficiency; responsibility for the financial support of families in countries of origin; being the targets of negative stereotypes and racist behaviour in the workplace; and less likelihood of having overseas-gained qualifications recognised..
Kleimaker points out that new migrant women are often responsible for caring for their own children and those of friends and relatives. Many of these women may be without a male partner for various reasons. Kleimaker points out "these new migrant women must struggle with the vicious system of Centrelink and a vicious employment system which is not open to employing women, let alone easily identifiable women such as black or Muslim women. These women have to rely on informal networks for accommodation, food, clothing and employment."
For these reasons, Kleimaker emphasises the need for welfare organisations to join the community fightback against the government's new industrial relations laws. It is to these already under-funded and overloaded bodies that vulnerable and impoverished women will have to turn under Howard's "pro-family" regime.
From Green Left Weekly, March 8, 2006.
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