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

Baptistcare

9 October 2009

To Whom It May Concern

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

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the Review of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999.

Baptistcare is committed to the principles of improving equal opportunity for women in society and particularly in the workplace. This organisation works in a sector that is critical in its contribution to improving the quality of life of many Australians, young and old, who live in our cities and towns and in rural, regional Australia. Within this sector, Baptistcare provides services to meet a wide range of life conditions experienced by members of the broader Australian community, including ageing, mental health and disability management, which are all part of the human condition and part of people's life experiences. It is fully engaged with its clients, residents, their families and communities in improving their quality of life wherever we can. This means that within our Vision and Mission, the commitment towards equal opportunity for women is critical in enabling us to achieve that transformation.

We have chosen to comment on certain aspects of the questions asked in the Issues Paper and acknowledge that it is not as comprehensive as we would like given this opportunity. However, we would be happy to elaborate on any of the comments we have made and we look forward to improving the current situation and the outcomes that are achieved by this review.

Yours sincerely

Dr C. Lucy Morris signature

Dr C. Lucy Morris
Chief Executive Office


Baptistcare - Response to Issues Paper

This response covers the following topics:

Baptistcare (WA Baptist Hospitals and Homes Trust Inc.) is a community benefit, not¬for-profit (NFP) organisation with nearly 40 years experience of working in the aged and community care sectors. It was established in 1972 by local Baptist churches who saw a specific need for residential aged care services in the community. From these beginnings has grown a significant organisation which presently offers the community 223 high care and 477 low care places in 11 facilities located in 10 metropolitan and rural locations within Western Australia. This will grow to 856 places in 14 facilities in 11 towns in 2010.

In addition to its residential services for older people, Baptistcare operates community services through its 203 Community Aged Care Packages (CACPs), 209 Veterans' Homes Care (VHC) packages, and at the same time, it serves other seniors through a range of independent living apartments in communities in Perth and the south west of WA.

Baptistcare also has a strong profile in the provision of family services, including residential, home and community based choices for people suffering and recovering from mental illnesses and people living with disabilities together with their families. Thus, Baptistcare is a significant community service provider with extensive experience in a range of services carried out in a wide variety of community locations with a diverse geographical spread. Services stretch from Kalbarri in the north to Albany in the State's south. We can speak with solid experience about rural, regional and remote service provision and metro-centricity in service perspectives.

Importantly, Baptistcare's character, service choices and values' base are informed and grounded in its Christian origins which centre its commitment to its Vision, Mission and Values. These speak clearly on its motivations and continuing future engagement in the community in a wide range of services.

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1. Current status of women in Australian workplaces

The analysis of the current situation for women in Australian workplaces in this Issues Paper provides a stark reminder of the difficulties women still face in gaining employment with all types of work, in all types of workplaces for equal pay and with the appropriate terms and conditions of employment. It is our view that the gap that currently exists is not changing at a visible or meaningful pace for either women or men who are seeking to close the gap.

Factors contributing to improving employment opportunities and outcomes for women include:

The impetus to make changes starts at the top of organisations with the leadership team and means that where there are women on boards and in senior positions in the organisation, shifts in expectations and actions occur on this issue. Women are being 'sandwiched' between male dominated boards and those in senior positions. This is not progress. The inherent systemic discrimination occurs irrespective of promotion on merit.

Good education that builds expectations among women regarding the opportunities they should have and to which they have a right to aspire is also critical. This also includes increasing their awareness of indirect, systemic discrimination which is often hard for them to see or accept as existing and their male role models struggle still to acknowledge it.

Positive female role models and mentoring by both men and women for women are also essential for establishing the necessary framework to make this happen. Current mentoring models are still heavily designed and weighted in favour of male preferences and men have greater access to the opportunities, while the financial and human resources are more likely to be referred in this direction.

Positive, affirmative training and professional development is required. So organisations such as the Australian Institute of Management, the Australian Institute of Company Directors, need affirmative courses, with both women and men delivering the lectures, workshops and seminars with a significant, clear, unambiguous, unequivocal commitment to achieving the changes in the workplaces and making sure the issues are discussed in the workshops.

Political commitment from party leaders is required to demonstrate leadership on this issue in the political sphere. Again, clear statements, positive actions to ensure this is seen to be done are essential. Simply arguing for merit based recognition is simplistic and denies the current discrimination that exists unfettered and unchallenged.

Strong legislation and recourse to the law is required by women, backed up with strong whistle blower legislation. The work by the unions is also not particularly affirmative or helpful, particularly in strong male dominated workplaces and with traditionally male-¬conceptualised work where men predominate in leadership positions, with male leadership styles of working and male preconceptions of award settings and terms and conditions of employment as proposed by men.

Obstacles that may impede further progress on achieving improved equal opportunity outcomes include:

The Unions are divided on this issue in terms of the attention that is paid to it, such that very male dominated workplaces and work do not welcome women. Unions focussed on female work such as childcare, aged care, nursing, community and health services do not work within a broader strategic framework of gender discrimination as a starting point of analysis and presentation to the wider community and so continue to work from a perspective of women being 'victims' and entrenching the sense of powerlessness. There is no serious understanding evident in their activist practice.

Women are not taught strongly enough to expect to have equal opportunities once they reach the workplace. Family responsibilities are often used to ensure that entrenched, social, cultural norms are reinforced to prevent women and men seeking alternative work models to meet the work requirements as well as remodelling the gender norms.

The welfare policy settings are completely focussed on keeping and maintaining the current cultural and social traditions and norms. Welfare payments, child care, caring work for others such as those with disabilities and the aged, is still seen as female work and the resourcing is done at a lower rate of pay, targeting women.

Access for women to appropriate levels of superannuation and pension is also a key factor in how women are treated and their real access to making relevant work and family responsibility choices. While women take time out of the workplace to have children, thus apparently reducing their choices on career progress, professional development and longevity of work and sustainability of their expertise and skills, the loss of pension and superannuation, also based on their level of pay, is significant and contributes hugely to their poverty as seniors. It is an indirect consequence of choices made about families and is one that is not experienced by men. Equal opportunity needs to have in-built balances for issues such as this.

The media representations and stereotyping are directly and frequently, obviously discriminatory in its discourse on the role of women and how they are seen by men as the dominant power committed to retaining, maintaining and ensuring the existing social and cultural traditions.

Our use of language supports the continued retention of the existing system and consistently undermines the transactional processes in place that are seeking change. There will be no consistent, sustained change while the use of language around gender discrimination is marginalised by those who wish to retain the current system, and it continues to be seen as being 'politically correct' and of no or little value or relevance.

The focus for enabling women and men to share work and caring:

Parental leave rather than maternity leave is still less likely to be available in workplaces with men still unable to take leave without it appearing unusual and men feeling that it is less acceptable and often the time taken is less than equal. The strong delineation between male and female work still exists and pre-determines the expectations and practice in workplaces.

Men are less likely to job share or work part-time or flexible hours when in the 20 - 55 age group as this is not 'normal' and there is no mechanism to change this attitude. Flexible time management opportunities are generally seen as a 'management perk' earned because of the complexity of work and salary paid, it is not seen as a work/life balance standard for all employees as there are no systems or discussions about how to make regular or more repetitive work flexible. It is seen as expensive and more resource and management intensive.

Men are less likely to take up or have access to the social security system to facilitate a sharing of family responsibilities and thus a critical weight supporting change is not emerging,

Government's role in achieving equal opportunity

The legislative framework, regulations, auditing and penalties available should be clear, enforceable, and have a high enough profile to make organisations pay attention and be observant.

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2. Overview of the EOWW Act and EOWA

Appropriateness and relevance of the objects of the EOWW Act for to day's workplaces:

The principle of women's employment being dealt with on merit only works if sufficient attention is paid to the type and substance of education and training and opportunities to access it, is directed towards genuinely achieving this goal. In addition, with the wide range of indirect, discriminatory practices presented prior to women being 'considered on merit' ensures that insufficient women are available for consideration, thereby reinforcing the view that women are not interested or not capable.

In relation to the role of men as fathers and carers, there needs to be far more work done on this in strong relationship to the current status of women. It is our view that this should not be included in the EOWW Act as this is focused on equal opportunity for women in the workplace. The relevance and importance of promoting the role of men as fathers and carers needs and must be done elsewhere, in other discourses including the assessment of legislation concerning social security and HR management that is taught in universities and elsewhere.

Domestic violence is also a considerable issue of concern and is hidden as a workplace issue. The industry in which Saptistcare operates has an employee gender profile of 87% women (ABS 2008). Given that one in four women experience violence at some point during their lives (15 - 65 years), not enough is done within the legislation to track this as a workplace issue that impacts on both work and family life, contributes to loss of earnings, loss of access to work, and maintenance of male power and authority and control of the workplace, thus possibly mirroring workplace and home life realities. Male behaviour in the workplace is often deeply entrenched with no insight and it mirrors home-based behaviour that is often not conducive to changing workplace culture.

Reporting obligations

The reporting requirements are not robust enough and any gains that might be had for insisting on transparency for the report to have wide circulation within the organisation is not essential. This might make a difference. In addition, the penalties for non-compliance are not onerous.

However, the focus and process to achieve changes and improvements should be one of working alongside the organisations to improve their performance rather than one of overkill through regulation and compliance and without any understanding of continuing improvements against a legal requirement.

It would also be worth considering that salary levels / comparisons should be made part of the reporting obligations to track the gaps between the salary scales in a way that is meaningful. In our not-for-profit sector, the gaps also exist with higher wages available for the same work in government and in the commercial sector. Often the gap exists between the executive/management and the rest of the employees, particularly in larger NGOs. Funding from government purchasing services does not take gender discrimination into account at a broad strategic level, so there is no attention paid to the continued determination to pay female work wages at a lower level. As mentioned previously, child care, aged care, disability care, working with those not valued in society draws lower wages and as its women who provide this work, the value placed on the work is less. This contributes to some counter-intuitive issues for achieving a gender balance in the not-for-profit sector, where there are significantly more women working in the workplace than men.

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3. Role and activities of EOWA

Key activities

The not-for-profit sector also faces interesting and challenging issues in relation to cultural and linguistically diverse service delivery and employment. In the increasingly multi-cultural social profile that exists in Australia, improving the employment rates among women from non-English speaking origins and their pay together with ATSI women should also be a focus for the Act. This is clearly overlaid with cultural norms that exist in addition to those in the wider Australian society. Previous comments on education and opportunity are very relevant here as is the issue of language and training and the existence of racial discrimination which overlays any issue of gender discrimination.

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4. Relationship of the EOWW Act and EOWA to other legislation, policies and institutions.

Anti-discrimination law

The capacity of women to take cases of discrimination to law or to the Australian Human Rights Commission is challenging and frequently too hard. The supports are too limited, access to resources limited, insufficient protection exists in the form of whistle-blower rights and the application of human rights in this direction is still unclear. There is not enough affirmative support provided for this aspect of the Anti-discrimination law.

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Summary

Baptistcare is committed to the principles embedded in this legislation and its supporting guidelines and regulations. However, it is our belief that it is not strong enough and there is insufficient resources available to vulnerable people to make its use as visible and meaningful as it should be.

The sector in which this organisation works has a strong female profile in its workforce. Our issues tend to manifest themselves differently and one of those examples relates to matters such as discrimination existing in the State and Federal government funding models that prevent equal pay occurring with other sectors. When men are employed in the sector, they frequently work in the positions of authority, and in the power-filled, status-positions such as finance, ICT, strategic development, CEO and on boards. The majority of NGO boards have a predominant male membership as is the case in the corporate sector as well. Women achieve positions to certain levels and walk away or often accept without thinking, the limitations that exist and do not expect to go any higher and rationalise that limitation with family responsibilities that are less likely to be evident with men. Men in lower paid positions in the sector are more likely to progress more quickly in their careers than women. Union awards have entrenched poverty and gender discrimination into their systems, such as the Social and Community Service Award, where the career opportunities, education and training are so restricted that it shuts down any potential for change. This is because there is insufficient funding for people to acquire new skills and training and contracts are short term so turnover in staff and projects prevents any attention being paid to improving wages over time. Caring and building relationships are seen as female work. The EOWW Act is insufficiently nuanced to take this sector into account. More work needs to be done in this area.

There is a lot of research emerging out of the sector that is appropriate for the issues raised in this Paper and the necessary discourse that needs to occur at a broader, social level.


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