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

Liquor Hospitality Miscellaneous Union

29 October 2009

Dear Minister,

Re: Submission of the Liquor, Hospitality Miscellaneous Union (LHMU) to the Review of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act and Agency.

Please find attached the submission of the LHMU to the Review of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act (1999) and Agency.

The LHMU supports the submission made to this review by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).

If you have any queries or would like to discuss any matters in relation to this submission, please contact Sue Lines, Assistant National Secretary, or Melissa Coad, Political Strategist, on 02 8204 3000.

Yours sincerely

Louise Tarrant signature

Louise Tarrant
National Secretary


Submission of the Liquor Hospitality Miscellaneous Union(LHMU)

This submission covers the following topics:

Introduction

LHMU is one of the largest unions in Australia and covers a range of industries, 60% of our members are women. Members work in cleaning, hospitality, education, child and aged care, manufacturing, security and health, many of which are considered low value and low paid. Many members work part time or casually.

Equal opportunity in the workplace is an important issue for our members and we welcome the opportunity to make this submission to the Review of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999 (EOWW Act) and the role of the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace (EOWW) Agency. While much of this submission focuses on childcare the issues are relevant across many of the industries we cover and recommendations for change at the end are not industry specific.

Women in these industries are often doing work that is undervalued, highly casualised and low paid, entrenching inequity for women throughout their working life and in retirement.

“There is an administrative mentality of “that’ll be at the cost of the children”. I’ve had it thrown at me on various occasions where the principal will say: “what you are asking for in your enterprise agreement is…will be at the cost of the children! If you do that then we cant afford it and the children will have to miss out. They’ll play on your emotions”

( Louise Teacher Aide 12 years experience)6

These problems entrench women’s inequality not just in individual workplaces but across entire industries.

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Industry wide inequity - the case of childcare

Despite using every opportunity provided in state and federal tribunals, and some success at moving child care rates in accordance with pay equity and work value principles, child care wages remain some $7 to $15 an hour behind established key classifications for similarly qualified workers.

Structural impediments, not the will of childcare workers, have stood in the way of real wage justice for well over 20 years. In the most recent case (PR957259), it took 3 full bench decisions and more than 6 months of waiting to move wages. Even then, childcare workers had to wait a further 18 months for the full effect to flow on. Any benefit that may have arisen from the time the case started to its final conclusion some 3 years later was well and truly lost. DEEWR’s own submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations states8:

“An analysis of minimum wage rates in all child care awards and APCS shows that employees covered by federal awards/APCS are generally paid less than their state system counterparts.” (p.16)

“A small sample of federal collective agreements in the child care sector show that the wage increases awarded as a result of the work value cases described earlier in this submission have generally been passed onto employees covered by agreements. However, the sample also indicates that a majority of employees employed under the sample collective agreements continue to be paid award equivalent rates of pay. Collective agreements do not appear to have resulted in higher wages than minimum award rates for child care workers.” (p. 18)

“The Government has acknowledged that many employees in industries like child care and community work, which typically employ women, part-timers, casuals or recent migrants, struggle to effectively bargain with their employers and often remain covered by minimum award rates and unfavourable conditions.” (p. 18)

Not only does DEEWR’s submission acknowledge the low pay status of the childcare sector and its difficulty, even through bargaining, in being successful at lifting rates above award minimums, they further state their recognition of:

“significant challenges to be addressed to build capacity in the early childhood workforce. Job turnover is high, with over one-in-five child care workers leaving the occupation every year; pay and status in the profession are low; and enrolments in diploma child care courses have been falling.” (p. 18)

Union representation in the AIRC (2005) led to successful alignment of the qualification levels, skills and competencies of childcare qualifications with those in the manufacturing/metals industry9 (see table below). Not withstanding the argument of the AIRC’s Full Bench that :

“if anything the nature of the work performed by childcare workers and the conditions under which that work is performed suggest that they should be paid more, not less than their metals industry counter¬parts”10

this likeness established under the Australian Classification Framework has not lead to ‘real pay’ parity outcomes as metal trade industries are rarely paid the award. The following tables outline current real pay differentials between the two.

Childcare Workers
(ABC MBA 2006)
HOURLY PAY RATES
Certificate iii $16.78
Diploma $18.98

Metal (Manufacturing)11
HOURLY PAY RATES
C10– Certificate iii $27.13
C5 - Diploma $34.06

It is doubtful that further pay equity or work value cases as a means for delivering wage justice will lift rates to the required professional standards. These cases have simply not delivered. As DEEWR states in their pay equity submission12:

“While the enterprise will continue to be the focus of most collective bargaining under the new system, multi-employer agreements will help ensure that employees and employers in key industries can take advantage of the opportunities for greater flexibility and improved pay and conditions based on improvements to productivity that collective bargaining can provide.” (p. 20)

From the above examination of childcare as an example of a highly feminised low paid workforce it seems using legal/industrial frameworks available, even and including pay equity and work value mechanisms, are not enough to bring about equity for women alone.

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Tackling industry wide inequity – a comparison of childcare and teacher aides

The following comparison of wages between teacher aides and childcare workers is instructive in what it reveals about broader systemic barriers to pay equity and equality for feminised industries

Childcare Workers and Teacher Aides have much in common when it comes to their jobs. They both support the development and learning of children in group settings (school and child care services) and their work roles converge in the following responsibilities:

A further similarity between Childcare Workers and Teacher Aides has been their ongoing industrial campaigns for improved recognition, pay and conditions since the mid 1970’s. Yet despite similar campaigns for change the following tables set out current pay differentials.

Childcare Workers (ABC MBA 200613)
HOURLY PAY RATES
Unqualified entrant $14.65
Certificate iii $16.78
Diploma $18.98

Teacher Aides ( Certified Agreement 200814)
HOURLY PAY RATES
TA2 - L1 Unqualified entrant $18.45
TA3 – L1 – Certificate iii $20.37
TA4 – L1 $22.57

There are a number of factors that led to the stark difference in rates between these two industries. One is that teacher aides have one employer, the state government and the other was the ability of the union to bargain collectively on behalf of teacher aides.

The positive impact of union involvement in changing pay and working conditions is not lost on members,

Well it only comes with obviously training through the union and knowledge of the system and how it works. Being educated about your rights makes you more capable, competent and prepared to go and fight for your rights. You gradually talk all the others into joining up and when you’ve got 6 or 8 people –and there’s only ever that many people in a school – and your all in the union and you’ve all got this one voice and you can say to the principal ‘Were not happy as a group here – we need a meeting’. Whereas if you are the only one in the union and you are almost ashamed to say you are in the union because of the way you know you are going to be treated. I know one principal who said to me “you are too unionized!” and I said why because “I keep an eye on you!”

He (the principal) used to try and ‘switch and diddle’ and you know it was a horrible time! Without having the union that I could throw ideas off and get confirmation of what I was finding in my bible – which is what I call my copy of the EB which I carry around-You know I would not have been game, its that simple. I would not have been game to say I’m not happy about this.

(Maria teacher Aide 29 year experience)15

Being a delegate has empowered me with sufficient confidence and knowledge to address any issues that arise. Last year in our campaign Teachers were shocked to find that we were still subject to the rise and fall of school numbers. We were well supported by them in our campaign to gain recognition and guaranteed hours in the EBA (Enterprise Bargained Agreement)

I think where childcare workers hit a stumbling block is whereas we are all employed by a government department in child care most of the employers for them are private and that’s where it’s going to be hard to get everyone together. Teachers supported us

(Barbara Teacher Aide 23 years experience)16

Teacher Aides demonstrate how being unionised has brought their case for job security, improved conditions, wages and industrial power forward.

“Many Principals, deputies and business service managers still believe they can give or take away our hours, without any consultation, and this is not the case. Many of us have always given above and beyond and it was assumed that this was the ‘norm’. Teachers were rather stunned to see us working-to-rule and leaving at the end of our rostered hours. This was when they realized we were serious!”

(Barbara, 23 years TA experience)17

“Sometimes its ‘quantity before quality – they just want more bodies on deck. As one deputy principal told me she could ‘employ the gardener to do Teacher Aide work’ and I said “ Oh well that’ll be fun, you know, whose going to do the gardening while he’s away?” She said, “there is nothing you have that the gardener doesn’t have to work with the children.”’

(Maria, 29 years TA experience)18

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Recommendations to address inequity

While this submission has in the main focussed on one industry, childcare, the following recommendations are not specific and could be effective across a range of industries. We have grouped the recommendations to broader government policy and EOWW Act and Agency specific.

For genuine equality for women to be reached government needs to make a serious commitment to legislate for, monitor and enforce EOWW principles. Government should be a model employer itself and a setter of standards for the rest of the community. Any requirements in the area of equal opportunity need to be linked to a whole of government strategy about what government expects in this area from employers. Equal opportunity legislation and policies need a greater connection to mainstream employment policies. This gives government greater points of leverage and can provide alternate mechanisms, for example through the tax system, for government to monitor and enforce compliance.

The Federal government has the capacity to be effective in combating women’s workplace inequity in the following ways;

Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act and Agency reccomendations;

  1. Productivity Commission. Part Time Employment: the Australian Experience. June 2008, Table 2.1 pg 20
  2. Martin, B & King, D. National Institute of Labour Studies. Who Cares for Older Australians. A Picture of the residential and community based aged care workforce 2007.
  3. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Forms of Employment Cat no 6359.0 2007
  4. Australian Fair Pay Commission. Economic and Social Indicators – Monitoring Report July to December 2008. 24/1/09
  5. Martin, B & King, D. National Institute of Labour Studies. Who Cares for Older Australians. A Picture of the residential and community based aged care workforce 2007.
  6. Interview with LHMU member Teacher Aides, Brisbane 23 September 2009. Names have been changed.
  7. Ross Clare, Retirement Savings Update (2008) p 3. At http://www.superannuation.asn.au/Reports/default.aspx (viewed 31 August 2009).
  8. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Supplementary Submission on Pay Equity and the Child Care Industry to the Government House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations Inquiry -no 58.3, 2009, p. 16 – 18
  9. AIRC decision 1998– Metal Award Relativities – Metal, Engineering and Associated Industries Award.
  10. AIRC 954938, para 183 cited in Dept. of Education, Employment & Workplace Relations Supplementary Submission on Pay Equity and the Childcare Industry to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations Inquiry (Pay Equity and Associated Issues Related to Increasing Female Participation in the Workforce ) 2009.
  11. Prysmian Power Cables and Systems Australia PTY Ltd Union Collective Agreement
  12. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Supplementary Submission on Pay Equity and the Child Care Industry to the Government House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations Inquiry -no 58.3, 2009
  13. ABC Learning Centres/LHMU Multiple Business Agreement 2006
  14. Dept. of Education & the Arts/LHMU Teacher Aides Certified Agreement 2008
  15. Interview with LHMU member Teacher Aides, Brisbane 23 September 2009. Names have been changed
  16. Interview with LHMU member Teacher Aides, Brisbane 23 September 2009. Names have been changed
  17. Ibid
  18. Ibid
  19. Christy, LHMU employee and former childcare worker

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