Review of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 – Submission
Charlotte Jordan
How are organisations responding to the barriers to women’s employment? What programs and policies are the most effective levers for change in organisations (e.g. work processes, organisational culture, and/or workplace relations and human resources practices).
Part time and casual work is an area that women highly populate in the workforce. As a casual employee myself, responding to the barriers women face in employment is of great importance. Currently undertaking a bachelor’s degree at university this will certainly open some doors for me in terms of job opportunities. However, the corporate culture that exists in the current organisation I work in demonstrates otherwise. Although I currently work in a low skilled job, the career opportunities to grow and progress through this organisation are not promoted or communicated to employees. More so, the employment opportunities communicated to employees on the front line such as myself are for only other front line positions with the brand across Melbourne. Despite gaining a university qualification at the end of the year, the company does not provide me with easy access to higher employment opportunities. This is not only the case I face as a young person, but also other female members of the brand who have remained on the front line for the organisation for over 15 years are also unable to access employment opportunities above the base level. When interviewing the front line manager of this brand, she attributed these barriers to corporate culture. Communication to female front line employees could often be patronising due to holding base level jobs and the women who worked in corporate positions were kept very separate from lower level employees. The head office and corporate roles of the firm are given to both men and women, yet almost all of the lower level jobs are given to women.
Having the Australian government consider incorporating the obligations in the EOWW Act into the Sex Discrimination Act is one recommendation that substantiates from the previous example.
Australia is now a nation of what Hill (Hill, 2007, 241) describes as ‘modified male bread winner” households in which women continue to be positioned as second or marginal income earners and responsible for family care roles. In this context, the extent to which women are integrated into employment as opposed to marginalised, casual, vulnerable, part time jobs given the current economic climate, is critical for their economic and financial outcomes as well as their empowerment, status and wellbeing (Preston & Barns, 2008).
In some sectors (e.g. hospitality) young women argued there to be a growing trend towards offering shorter shifts as a way of minimising costs as part of coping with the recession (i.e. saving on payments for breaks) (Preston & Jefferson, 2007). They also suggested the issue of job quality in regards to having stronger resonance between the attributes of full time and part time work. The younger generation of women show great levels of attachment to the workforce, with many of us wanting to work more hours than what we currently do (A.B.S., 2007). Yet there seems to be little new employment opportunities being created and celebrated for women to make the leap from part time to full time work (Kee, 2006). As a young woman who is studying I was offered part time work based on the appeal that it was “flexible” with my studying commitments, but also a future career path. However, it more so provided me with reduced promotional opportunities, reduced access to training and education and reduced certainty concerning employment security. If part time and casual jobs are to continue to be the main vehicle through which women in Australia balance their family responsibilities then it is critical that Australia offers a broader set of part time job opportunities to facilitate career advancement.
Charlotte Jordan
Thursday 24th September, 2009
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics (A.B.S.). (2007) Underemployment, Catalogue Number 6265.0, Canberra: A.B.S.
Hill, E. (2007) “Budgeting for Work-Life Balance: The Ideology and Politics of Work and Family Policy in Australia’, Australian Bulletin of Labour 33(2): 226-245.
Kee, H. (2006) “Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor? Exploring the Australian Gender Pay Gap”, Economic Record, 82(259): 408-427.
Preston, A.C. and Jefferson, T. (2007) Understanding the Effects of Industrial Regulation in Australia: A Case Study of Minimum Wage Workers in Western Australia, 16th Annual Conference on Feminist Economics, June 29-July 1, Ramkhamhaeng University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Preston, A. & Barns, A. (2008). Gender (In)Equality In Participation And Opportunity: The Case Of Australia, Graduate School of Business, Curtin University of Technology
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