May-Jun 2008

Women@Work: Your Rights

Work killing the family, report says

Even in an industry such as ours, the Maritime Industry - with it�s strong and militant union force, our women members reflect the same appalling statistics as other women in our society in general.

Given it's IWD, a day marked to celebrate working women's rights, it's only apt that we highlight the fact that even in an industry such as ours, the Maritime Industry with it's strong and militant union force, our women members reflect the same appalling statistics as other women in our society in general.

Pay equality may have been reached but pay equity not so much. Women continue to earn less on average than that of our male comrades. This discrepancy is primarily due to hidden discrimination in the form of access to overtime, and higher paid shifts (for casuals) as well as missing "up grades" to higher paid roles.

Likewise, too few of our women members have access to paid maternity leave, and fewer still to the benchmark 14 weeks. Australia and the US are the only remaining OECD countries not to legislate for minimum paid maternity leave across the workforce.

Similarly the organisations our union deals with and indeed even within our own structure we see too few women in decision making positions, and even experience open sexual discrimination in site/OH &S and bargaining committees. - Sue Virago - MUA National Women's Coordinator

The articles below outline further the areas for consideration and concern.

ACTU Media Release Issued 7 March 2007

Women now earn $100 a week less than men: ACTU analysis shows widening gender pay gap A new ACTU analysis shows women in full time jobs now earn $100 a week less than men and that the pay gap for working women is getting wider.

Full time women now earn on average 10% less than men - the same gender pay gap as 1978, almost 30 years ago. ABS data also shows the real wages of female workers has fallen 2 per cent over the last 12 months.

Commenting on the worsening situation for women workers, ACTU President Sharan Burrow said today:

'On the eve of International Women's Day (Thursday 8 March), the ACTU calls for a renewed focus on women's pay and their working rights in Australia.'

The Federal Government is presiding over a significant worsening of women's right to equal pay and the right to family-flexible working conditions.

With almost one in four women (23%) reliant on awards (compared to only 15% of men), the erosion of award conditions like penalty rates, leave loading and public holiday payments is having a serious impact on women's take home pay.

The Federal Government's refusal to include in the new minimum legal standards rights to family-flexible working conditions that were won in the Work and Family Test Case has also been a major setback.

It is a disgrace that Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey has denied there is a problem with unequal pay, instead he has expressed pride in women re-entering the labour force into low paid jobs in the retail and hospitality sectors.

The Minister should not be proud of a system where mothers returning from parental leave are expected to work in the lowest paid jobs in our country and have the least job security and least control over their hours of work. 'He should be ashamed' said Ms Burrow.

Call to give families more rights at work

Baby bonus not enough to balance work-life seesaw, work killing the family, report says
March 7, 2007

A TWO-YEAR inquiry has called for a radical improvement in workers' rights after hearing evidence from hundreds of Australians "frustrated and disheartened by the struggle" to combine paid work and family life.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission says a better way has to be found to relieve the huge pressures on workers by recognising that caring for loved ones is an integral part of working life, not a choice that individual employees can make.

It calls for a new federal law to give employees the right to ask for flexible hours to care for children, aged parents, ill and disabled relatives and, increasingly, ill or ageing friends who have no children.

It describes as a top priority the need for a government-funded scheme of 14 weeks' paid maternity leave, and calls on the Federal Government to do more to limit long working hours. It also proposes a 12-month period of unpaid leave for employees who need to care for seriously or terminally ill dependants.

Though it was the Prime Minister who first called the family/work juggle a "barbecue stopper", the report will put pressure on the Howard Government, which has ruled out paid maternity leave and giving workers legal rights to request flexible work conditions.

Labor has promised to make working hours a big issue at the federal election, but while it has more sympathetic workplace policies, it has not endorsed paid maternity leave.

The commission's report, It's About Time - Women, Work, Men and Family, will be released today in Sydney. However, the woman who spearheaded the inquiry for 18 months, the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Pru Goward, will not attend the launch, having taken leave to stand in the NSW election as the Liberal candidate for Goulburn.

FULL STORY

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