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Review of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 – Submission

National Tertiary Education Union - Robyn May

16 October 2009

1. Introduction

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) represents more than 25,000 staff employed in the tertiary education sector in Australia. While academic and general staff in the university sector comprise the majority of NTEU’s membership, the Union also represents staff of student organisations, English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) and staff working in university companies. In addition, the Union represents an increasing number of staff working in private education providers, TAFE and adult education.

NTEU is pleased to have the opportunity to make a submission to this Review. The Union has a long history of commitment to equal opportunity for women and gender pay equity, and is well placed to speak on these issues.

2. Women and the Tertiary Education Industry

The issue of women’s workforce participation is a critical one for Australia’s Universities. University academic staff in particular, are an ageing demographic, and are the oldest group of professional workers in Australia, with up to a third set to retire over the coming decade1. World-wide competition for high quality academic staff is fierce, and many top Australian researchers have been lured overseas by high salaries and first class research facilities. In this context the recruitment, retention and promotion of women academics has a renewed importance.

However, evidence is emerging that whilst the academic labour market is becoming tighter, gender pay equity is becoming less rather than more attainable in the University sector2. Whilst women now attend University in higher rates than men, and the proportion of women in non-casualised academic positions has grown considerably (to 42% in 2008), growth in access to senior academic posts has been slow. In 2008 just 25% of professorial positions were occupied by women3.

There are a number of factors working against women gaining access to senior positions within our University sector. These factors include the excessive hours culture and work intensification, lack of mentors, role models and support, merit and success defined in gendered terms and career interruptions associated with childbirth and care4. In addition, structural changes in the academic labour force are having a negative impact on the gender pay gap and women’s access to tenured employment.

Significant change to the structure of the academic labour market, has come about as universities have internationalized, sought to operate more like a business5 and to cope with the decline in government funding that has occurred over the last decade. Academic staff are now more likely than ever to face insecure employment, with record numbers currently employed on either a casual (that is hourly paid) or fixed term basis6. In the decade to 2005, casual staff numbers in the sector increased 54% whilst overall employment grew 17%7. The use of fixed term employment has also surged following the removal of restrictions upon its use.

These changes have hit women hardest. Analysis of the 2007 DEEWR8 data show that 25% of all women academic staff on a full time equivalent basis are casual (compared with 16% of men); mirroring economy wide data showing that up to a third of all women workers are employed casually9. Suggestions that casual work for women academic staff somehow reflects their preference for ‘flexibility’ in combining work and family have been debunked by a number of surveys10. Instead many casual academic staff find themselves trapped in a cycle of insecurity with faint hope of a permanent position11. At the same time, little has been done to address the growing skills crisis in the sector and there is no mechanism for a sector wide approach to the issue as universities compete against each other for quality staff.

The higher education sector has however, been at the forefront of workplace initiatives designed to assist women, in particular, to combine work and family. Following an initiative negotiated by the Australian Catholic University with the NTEU and the CPSU in 2003, NTEU has led the way achieving, through collective bargaining, an average of 26 weeks paid maternity leave at Australian universities, and up 36 weeks at eight institutions. Collective bargaining outcomes also included access to further unpaid leave, up to a total of 2 years. Other conditions such as access to carer’s leave are now standard across Universities. The other important initiative is access to workplace based child-care facilities. A number of universities offer in-house crèche facilities and allow staff to salary-sacrifice the fees, providing a critical cost saving, and facilitating return to work for staff with young children. These gains appear to be a necessary, although not sufficient platform for equal opportunity for women in the university sector.

Despite these important gains made for women in the university sector, the increased precariousness of university employment has meant that many of the benefits such as paid maternity leave, carers’ leave, flexible working and so on are simply not available to casual staff and are certainly less accessible to women staff employed on fixed term contracts. For the average Australian university today, where more than half its staff on a headcount basis would be employed on either a casual or fixed term contract basis, this means only a minority of women staff ever have access to the kinds of conditions that allow 20 of Australia’s universities to call themselves an ‘employer of choice for women’12.

3. Questions to consider

Are the objects of the EOWW Act appropriate and relevant for today’s workplaces?

The Australian workplace today is characterised by both a long hours’ culture for those in full time employment, whilst at the same time there are many workers working short hours who would like to be working more. Close to a quarter of all workers are employed on a casual basis, that is their employment is an hourly pay arrangement with no access to standard employment entitlements such as annual leave, sick leave, and with much lower entitlement to superannuation.

Whilst these disadvantages are nominally compensated for by a casual loading, research has shown that this loading is not always paid.13 Women are most affected by these structural changes in the labour market, in large part due to the persistence of the ‘male breadwinner model’ in our society which forces many women into a secondary earning capacity. Legislation aimed at improving opportunity for women cannot ignore these structural labour market realities, nor the pressures for more ‘flexibility’ in the labour market.

Has the EOWW Act contributed to improving women’s employment opportunities? If not, why not? If so, how?

A question like this could not be answered without proper analysis of data which determined first how ‘improved employment opportunities for women’ would be defined and second how the impact of legislation could be disentangled from other factors such as the broader economy, societal changes, labour market changes. What we know in the university sector is that women are entering this workforce at a greater rate and are making some progress toward reaching more senior positions. Good employment conditions such as paid maternity leave have assisted women’s retention rates after childbirth and appear to attract women to the sector. At the same time however precarious employment in the university sector is growing at a rapid rate and women are disproportionately represented in this area, and these women are denied access to the conditions enjoyed by their tenured sisters.

More broadly strong EEO legislation can assist union claims for improved conditions for women at work by ‘normalising’ these conditions and providing added impetus to employers to make improvements. The ‘light touch’ regulation of the current EOWW legislation, however, which aims to encourage and support employer organisations to address equal opportunity issues in their workplaces, has really not achieved what it set out to, in particular to, ‘promote equal employment opportunity and eliminate discrimination’.

Should the role of men as fathers and carers be acknowledged in the EOWW Act?

NTEU believes that the greater involvement of men in the sharing of caring responsibilities would make a significant difference to the opportunities available for women in paid employment. NTEU was extremely disappointed that the recommendations made by the Productivity Commission in their report Paid Parental leave: Support for parents with newborn children14 for 2 weeks paid parental leave to be made available to fathers, were not adopted by government. Until the labour market disadvantage that is created by child-bearing and child raising is shared more equally between women and men, the gender pay gap will remain.

How are organisations responding to 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 practice)?

As a trade union we believe that it is legally enforceable rights at work, provided through legislation, awards and collective agreements that makes the most difference for women at work. Indeed international research shows that women do best where employment conditions are centralised and regulated, and do worst where bargaining is decentralised or conditions are left to policy.15 Policies and procedures are always subject to managerial prerogative and whim and can be very vulnerable to change when the economy has a downturn.

Are there alternative enforcement mechanisms that would effectively and efficiently ensure compliance? Can you provide examples? What additional benefits would they bring?

NTEU believes that compliance would be assisted by random audits of employers to verify their self reported data. This could also be applied to ‘employer of choice for women’ award recipients.

4. Summary

In addition to our comments above, the NTEU supports the recommendations made by the ACTU to this review.

5. Recommendations

In addition to meeting the minimum requirements of the EOWW Act, employers may seek to become ‘employers of choice’ by meeting best practice standards over and above the minima. These standards should be developed through the EOWW Agency and should include an obligation on employers to provide information on employment conditions available to women who are casual or fixed term. Employers who are awarded ‘employer of choice for women’ should be subject to random audits by the EOWW Agency.

  1. Hugo, G (2005) Some emerging demographic issues in Australia’s teaching academic workforce, Higher Education Policy Vol 18, 207-229
  2. Strachan, G, Whitehouse, G, Peetz, D, Bailey, J & Broadbent, K (2008) Gender equity in Universities: Should we be worried? Paper presented to AIRAANZ Conference, Melbourne, February 2008
  3. DEST (2006) Staff 2006: Selected Higher Education Statistics
  4. Strachan etal
  5. Marginson, S (2006) Dynamics of national and global competition in higher education, Higher Education 52 (1) 1-39
  6. May, R, Gale, L & Campbell, I (2008) Casually appointed, permanently exploited: How is NTEU responding to the casualisation of academia in the current environment? Paper presented at AIRAANZ Conference, Melbourne, February 2008
  7. May, R etal
  8. DEEWR (2009) Staff 2008: Selected Higher education statistics
  9. ABS (2007) Cat 6310.0
  10. Junor, A (2004) Casual university work: Choice, risk, inequity and the case for regulation, Economic and Labour Relations review, 14 (2) 276-304, Gottschalk, L & McEachern, S (2007) Casual and sessional employment: Motivation and work-life balance, School of Business, University of Ballarat
  11. Ibid
  12. EOWA (2009) EOWA Employer of Choice for women list, EOWWA website
  13. Buchanan, J (2004) ‘Paradoxes of significance: Australian casualisation and labour productivity’ Paper for conference August 2004, http://www.wrc.simply.com.au/documents/WP93.pdf
  14. Productivity Commission Inquiry Report 05/2009
  15. Rubery, J (1992) ‘Pay, Gender and the Social Dimension to Europe’, British Journal of Industrial Relations 30:4, December 1992, pp604-621

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