Women still trail in pay stakes
By Dan Harrison | smh.com.au | 31 August
A woman starting work today will retire having earned $1 million less than a man doing the same job, and with less than half the superannuation of her male counterparts.
Responding to that pay gap, unions are pushing for companies to be forced to disclose what they pay their employees.
The ACTU will today write to senior Federal Government ministers including Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Families Minister Jenny Macklin and the Minister for Women, Tanya Plibersek, asking for their support for a number of measures aimed at bridging the gender pay divide.
While women are now more likely to have a tertiary qualification than men, women graduates will earn $2000 less than their male counterparts on entering the workforce. By the fifth year after graduation, the gap will have widened to $7400.
Fewer than 2 per cent of companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange have a female chief executive, and only one in 12 board directors are women. "Many Australians believe women won equal pay in the `70s — but they are wrong," ACTU president Sharan Burrow said.
Among the union demands are compulsory "pay equity audits" which would require companies to disclose what male and female employees are paid — including bonuses — at all levels of the corporation.
Some companies have begun to do this voluntarily in the United Kingdom, with encouragement from the British Labour Government and unions. Ms Burrow said such audits could form part of collective employment agreements, but making them compulsory would be more effective.
"It would be a simple way of changing the corporate culture if people knew what it was that men and women were earning up through the pay scale," Ms Burrow said.
"Making them part of the reporting cycle for companies would make a huge difference."
Among the ACTU's other demands are better legal protection for flexible work arrangements, better quality, more accessible and affordable childcare, a greater valuing of traditionally female-dominated fields such as health, education and welfare, and an inquiry into women's retirement incomes.
The ACTU campaign is backed by an alliance of other individuals and organisations including Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick, the YWCA and the Women's Electoral Lobby.
First published by Smh.com.au on August 31 2009
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