Australian women will remain over-represented in low-paid jobs at the bottom of the labour market unless the government moves to strengthen their collective bargaining rights in the next round of industrial relations laws to come before parliament, says ACTU President Sharan Burrow.
“Women have been instrumental in sustaining Australia’s long economic boom, fuelling huge growth in our service industries especially,” Ms Burrow told the Macquarie University Women, Management and Employment Relations Conference in Sydney this morning.
“Yet most remain among the lowest paid with little power to negotiate.
“In drafting new laws to do away with Work Choices, the government has a rare opportunity to re-shape the Australian industrial landscape to make sure women are getting a fair go under the best possible system.”
The ACTU President said unions wanted to see a range of measures including:
- Multi-employer bargaining where workers in small, isolated workplaces could be represented as a group, with an enforceable right to good faith bargaining and the right to take protected industrial action;
- A universal, government-funded paid maternity leave scheme of at least 14 weeks paid at minimum wage level, including 9% superannuation and an employer contribution for women earning above the minimum wage, guaranteed under the National Employment Standards;
- Provisions in the new laws to close the pay gap between men and women.
“It’s been almost 40 years since it became unlawful to pay women less than men for work of equal value and yet women working full-time still earn an average of 16% less than men,” Ms Burrow told the conference.
A full copy of the speech can be downloaded by clicking on the attachment below.
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Sharan Burrow Speech - Women in the workplace
