If you believe Australia has equal pay for women read this

Historically, women were employed as a source of cheaper labour with wages that were tokenistic rather than meeting the needs of household costs. If the work was caring related such as nursing or teaching (think also, HR) it was seen really as an extension of women's unpaid work at home.   We feel a bit more enlightened these days and every worker and employer will say that "of course they pay men and women equally".  The reality is that women's working conditions and pay are still being influenced by historical norms but it's an unconscious bias.

The proposed Equal Remuneration Case is set to compare the (low) wages of the female dominated Community Services Sector against a comparable male dominated sector to determine whether this skill set is being pay equitably. The Gillard goverment has raised an objection on the basis that correcting these pay differences will be too costly. She's proposing that we continue to knowingly underpay women.  A modern approach, no?






Read more:  SMH newspaper article Gillard backtracks on support for equal pay for women

Follow the Equal Remuneration Case

2010 EOWA BUSINESS ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

My highlights of the EOWA Business Achievement Awards (from EOWA's press release) are:

 

§  Paul Hitchcock, Corporate Express Australia Limited
 Leading CEO for the Advancement of Women

When Paul Hitchcock became CEO of Corporate Express he recognised that something needed to be done to turn around the blokey culture and “it needed to start with me”. With 50% of the workforce being female, no women in senior leadership and few women in management roles, he has turned what was perceived as a “women’s issue” into a business issue by calling for targets and keeping a monthly scorecard on gender diversity. He also decided to “own” gender diversity because he didn’t want to run the risk of it becoming ‘no more than a policy’ and rallied the male leaders within Corporate Express to support it. In 2009 he changed the structure of the leadership group to ensure it included all leaders, not just those with a profit and loss role and increased the number of women in leadership from 9% to 35%.

§  Griffith University
Leading Organisation for the Advancement of Women (>800 Employees) 

To assist people caring for dependants, it provides reversible part-time appointments for up to five years with the guaranteed option of returning to full time. Recruitment procedures also require shortlists for senior roles to include at least one woman, resulting in more attention on attracting suitable candidates, especially into roles where it has been difficult to attract women applicants.

§  Synnex Australia Pty Ltd
(Outstanding EEO Practice for the Advancement of Women in a Non-Traditional Area/Role)

Synnex, an IT distribution company, tackled the gender pay gap by increasing the number of women at each level of the organisation in its male dominated workforce. They reviewed and altered job descriptions and diversified roles to attract female candidates as well as well as offering flexible working arrangements and work from home options. A new internal grading system was introduced to overcome the issue that female staff didn’t have specific industry experience and found it hard to be promoted as quickly as other employees. All senior managers were requested to nominate high achieving female staff members to take on the role of 2IC or team leaders and the women identified were offered external training and a mentor.

§  Shine Lawyers
 (The Minister’s Award for Outstanding EEO Initiative/Result for the Advancement of Women)

Brisbane based Shine Lawyers, unveiled a new Parental Support Scheme that has set a benchmark. The scheme provides up to an additional 20% of an employee’s base salary in childcare costs (until their children reach school age); 18 weeks of paid maternity leave and links to childcare centres throughout the country to ease the burden of finding a place for employees’ children. In the first seven months the Parental Support Scheme has been operational, 100% of women eligible for maternity leave returned to the firm and utilised its flexible working arrangements.

 

Summary of Finalists' achievements