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For Australia to achieving true pay equity, the AEU argued in its submission to the in pay equity inquiry, that Government should make the following changes:
Amendments to Fair Work Act 2009
Clarify the definition of pay equity in the FWA, which is to make “equal remuneration for men and women employees for work of equal or comparable value” but to also ensure the valuation of “dissimilar work of equal or comparable value” is an explicit object of the legislation;
Adopt a set of Equal Remuneration Principles which clarifies that:
Require the President of FWA to set out how the principle is to be applied;
Establish a discrete fund (by Attorney General) for pay equity cases;
Provide tighter definitions of 'work value reasons' and of historic undervaluation based on gender;
Require award modernisation to include pay equity criteria which applies a 'gender neutral work valuation' as well as other monitoring and reporting measures;
Amend the NES relating to flexible work requests to be extended to ALL employees;
Introduce policies that encourage greater female participation and opportunity in the labour market such as extending the availability of carer's leave and rights to flexible work arrangements to carers of school age children, disabled and elderly dependents.
Anti Discrimination Legislation
Increase the Sex Discrimination Commissioner's powers to allow self initiated complaints where the Sex Discrimination Act is breached and for the Human Rights Commission to commence legal action for a breach; and
Require repeat discriminators on the basis of pregnancy or carers' responsibilities can be mandatorily sent to counselling or training.
Data Collection/Pay Equity Unit
Establish a specialist Pay Equity Unit in Fair Work Australia for monitoring, applying pay equity audits and pay equity plans and assist FWA in award modernisation;
Ensure Pay Equity audits are conducted by employers where employees, their union or an agency charged with overseeing pay equity issues
Require reporting to the Pay Equity Unit by federal public sector organisations and employers of more than 100, and also that small businesses submit an audit report in response to a specific request by the Pay Equity Unit;
That the Equal Employment for Women in the Workplace Act (EOWWA) be repealed and the functions of the office be incorporated into the proposed Pay Equity Act;
Improve ABS data collection by expanding data sets to include more useful pay and employment condition comparisons by gender, and to work with the Pay Equity Unit. Importantly for this data collection, the Tax Administration Act should be amended to enable the disclosure of aggregate wages/salary for the purposes of a Pay Equity Unit officer to undertake the necessary research work of the Unit.
Government Business
That the Office for Women be moved back to Prime Minister and Cabinet and that gender analyses be included in Cabinet submissions;
Establish Government procurement policies which do not provide industry assistance or award Commonwealth contracts to business who cannot meet pay equity principles; and
Remove the exemption for the payment of superannuation to those earning less than $450 per month, which is a significant change for the retirement savings of low income women. There is a proposal also to broaden the scope of the super co-contribution scheme to include all low income earners.
Culture Change
More programs and information must be established to support Indigenous women's, CALD women's and women with disabilities' employment choices and conditions; and
The Minister for the Status of Women raise with the Ministerial Council of Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs, the need to review curriculum and careers advice/course selection processes in all educational institutions for gender stereotyping.
More information on the Parliamentary Inquiry into Pay Equity.
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