Sixty-six days. That’s how many extra days the average Australian woman must work each year to earn the same as the average Australian man.
This year, September 4 is exactly 66 days from the end of the previous financial year, which is why Equal Pay Day is being held on that date.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, while average male earnings are $1337.1 a week, for a woman it is $1105.70. That works out to an 18% difference.
Over the length of her career, a woman will end up earning about $1 million than a man who began his working life at the same time.
Women earned the right to equal pay back in 1972 after decades of having their wages set at a lower rate than men, however this has not translated into a fair and equal outcome.
At an Equal Pay Day function held at the Bella Union Bar in the Victorian Trades Hall building on Friday, long-time feminist and activist Morag Loh told how the struggle by unions for equal pay went back to the early part of last century.
But it really gained momentum in the period from the 1950s to the 1970s, she said.
The 1960s saw women enter the workforce in big numbers so that by the middle of the decade a quarter of all women were in the workforce.
“That meant the old policy of not acknowledging women’s right to work was beginning to be beaten,” she said.
“In the 1950s a key element of the Union of Australian Women policy was recognising women’s right to work at all. Teachers and nurses, when they married, they had to resign.
“The 1960s, because of the increasing number of women coming in, put paid to that.”
Women’s minimum wage was set at 54% of men’s wages in 1912, rising to 75% in 1950.
But it was not until 1972, following a test case run by the ACTU, that the principle of equal pay for work of equal value was established.
Yet even though this principle is enshrined by law and women make up half of the workforce, in practice there is still an 18% gender pay gap. And some of the arguments against equal pay – such as the cost for employers – remain the same as well.
Virtually from day one, they are behind their male counterparts. Male graduates will earn $2000 more than women graduates in their first job, and $7500 less after five years in the workforce.
By the end of their working life, not only will the typical woman have earned $1 million less than her male colleague, but she will have less than half the retirement savings, partly due to a lifetime of both working and caring for her family.
Consequently, women are two and a half times more likely to live in poverty in their old age than men.
How can this be so?
“Industries which employ mostly women, and jobs which involve traditional female skills, in particular care and support roles, are undervalued and underpaid,” says ACTU President Ged Kearney.
She said the union-run national Equal Pay Test Case for community and social workers which is currently underway in Fair Work Australia aims to address the massive undervaluation of the female-dominated social and community services (SACS) sector.
With hearings listed to begin early next month, the full bench of FWA is currently conducting field inspections of SACS workplaces to familarise itself with the issues.
“The gap has been widening, in particular under the Howard Government’s WorkChoices era - where due to the unequal bargaining power of men and women, it increased from women earning 87cents for each dollar earned by men in 2004 to 84 cents in 2007,” Kearney told the audience at Friday’s function.
Kearney said unions will continue to campaign to close the gender wage gap and fight for improvements to minimum wages, advocate for improved rights for workers with family responsibilities, and increased responsibilities on employers to address gender discrimination and inequity in the workplace.
They will also be looking for commitments from state and federal governments to continue the efforts to reduce the pay gap.
As Morag Loh told the function, equal pay won’t come from being nice.
“Nice unions don’t get you anywhere,” she said.
“Militant unions get you places.”
And she had one other pertinent piece of advice: “No matter what the reason they’re giving for supporting equal pay, take it. Because once you’ve got it [they won’t take it away].”
Mark Phillips is ACTU Media Co-ordinator
R@W News is a forum for news, analysis and commentary about rights at work and related issues. The opinions presented in R@W News are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent policies or views of the ACTU.