The Guardian 22 August, 2007
Women’s wages drop under Howard
Not one but three reports highlighting the growing wage gender gap under the Howard IR regime were released this month. Generation Y shows young women born between 1976 and 1991 (Gen Y — the children of so-called "Generation X"), are better educated than men in their age group, but worse off in the wage stakes.
"Some Gen Y women may wrongly believe that the hard work on gender equality has already been done. While they are better educated, women are still paid less than their male counterparts and they are falling significantly behind in accumulating assets for later life", said Ms Harding who co-authored the report with Rebecca Cassells.
"Whilst women’s labour force participation has increased substantially over the past 15 years and they now have more post-school qualifications than men of this age group, … there are still large differences between what full-time employed men and women take home each week in their pay packet, even when they are working in the same occupations", the report notes.
"Gen Y men are on average earning more income each week than Gen Y women in every broad group occupation classification, ranging from an extra $34 per week for professionals to $135 per week for elementary clerical, sales and service workers. Unfortunately there is still extensive evidence showing that the gender wage gap in Australia is well and truly alive, with estimates of a 15 per cent wage difference between Australian men and women (National Institute of Labour Studies, 2006)."
"Single Gen Y women also have less in superannuation than single Gen Y males who have on average 30 per cent, or $25,000, more in assets than single Gen Y women", the report states.
Official figures released last week by the Australian Bureau of statistics (ABS) confirm that the wages gap is widening. Average wages for ordinary time earnings (exclude overtime, etc) for full-time male workers were $1,160 per week compared with $970 for female employees — a gap of $190 per week. This gap has increased by $12 per week in the past six months. When overtime rates are also taken into consideration the gap is even wider.
These findings follow the report Women and WorkChoices showing women working in retail and aged care, traditionally low paid jobs, have lost up to $100 a week since the introduction of the Howard Government IR laws.
What’s worse, those who complain or question these losses get the sack. With the majority of employers being exempted from unfair dismissal laws, employers do not have to justify a sacking.
One of the worst examples was a 55-year-old age care worker in Canberra diagnosed with cancer. Her employer sacked her for being "too sick to work".
Reports of women being sacked for falling pregnant or refusing to trade down to a part time job are also documented.
"Work Choices is not just doing the wrong thing by women, it’s impacting on families", said MUA Women’s Liaison Officer Michelle Myers. "When your partner or mother has to work longer hours for less, everyone suffers."
Employers are becoming increasingly bolder in using the Howard Government’s anti-union laws to attack wages and working conditions and exercise the greater freedoms the laws give them to discriminate against women. At the same time CEOs are becoming more obscene in the large payouts they are helping themselves to, measuring success in terms of sackings, low wages, removal of workers’ working conditions and the booming profits that result.