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Tag: Lisa Heap

  • Budget 2024-25: Resists Austerity, Reduces Inflation, Targets Wage Gains

    Macroeconomics, Public Sector, Procurement & Privatisation, Wages & Entitlements

    Budget 2024-25: Resists Austerity, Reduces Inflation, Targets Wage Gains

    Important support to help with cost-of-living challenges, but more needed
    by Greg Jericho, Lisa Heap, Charlie Joyce, Fiona Macdonald and Jim Stanford

    Authors

    Greg Jericho

    Chief Economist

    Lisa Heap

    Senior Researcher

    Charlie Joyce

    Researcher

    Fiona Macdonald

    Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

    Jim Stanford

    Commonwealth Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered his 2024-25 budget to Parliament. While it booked a surplus for 2023-24 (the second consecutive surplus), it increased total spending for future years, and forecasts continued small deficits. In the wake of the economic slowdown resulting from RBA interest rate hikes, this new spending is needed and appropriate.

    Targeted cost of living measures will directly reduce inflation in some areas (like energy and rents), while helping working Australians deal with higher prices in others (including reworked State 3 tax cuts, and support for higher wages for ECEC and aged care workers). Unlike previous years, the budget is projecting real wage gains in coming years that are actually likely to materialise — however, the damage from recent real wage cuts will take several years to repair, and further support for strong wage growth will be required, from both fiscal policy and industrial laws. The budget also spelled out initial steps in the government’s Future Made in Australia strategy to build renewable energy and related manufacturing industries; these steps are welcome but need to be expanded, and accompanied by strong and consistent measures to accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels.

    Our team of researchers at the Centre for Future Work has parsed the budget, focusing on its impacts on work, wages, and labour markets. Please read our full briefing report.



    Full report

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  • On International Women’s Day: How the Fair Work Commission Can Really Take On the Gender Pay Gap

    On International Women’s Day: How the Fair Work Commission Can Really Take On the Gender Pay Gap

    by Lisa Heap in The Conversation

    Lisa Heap

    Senior Researcher

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    Originally published in The Conversation on March 8, 2024

    On occasion of International Women’s Day, the Centre for Future Work’s Senior Researcher Lisa Heap reviews the opportunities to use recent industrial relations reforms to more ambitiously address Australia’s gender pay gap.

    This International Women’s Day, it is time to call on Australia’s workplace umpire, the Fair Work Commission, to finally close the gender pay gap.

    Half a century after the commission’s predecessor granted women “equal pay for equal work” in a landmark case in 1969, the gap remains between 12% and 21%.

    Amendments to the Fair Work Act by the incoming Labor government in 2022 gave it new tools to close the gap by addressing the undervaluation of work in traditionally female-dominated occupations.

    If it uses these tools to their full potential, 2024 will be a landmark year in the genuine achievement of equal pay for equal work.

    What we’ve been doing hasn’t much worked

    Traditionally in Australia, addressing gender-based undervaluation has relied on two approaches.

    The first has been to argue the business case for gender equality – convincing employers they’ll be rewarded for “doing the right thing”.

    The second has been to bring equal pay cases to tribunals.

    Unfortunately, neither approach has been successful. In particular, pushing for equal remuneration through tribunals has been time-consuming and expensive.

    These tribunals, historically working on models of male full-time wage earners, have struggled to understand the undervaluation of work performed predominantly by women.

    The commission’s new tools

    The commission’s act has been rewritten to require it “to promote job security and gender equality.”
    It also has the power to make equal remuneration orders either on its own initiative or on application in order to bring about equal pay for work of equal or comparable value.

    A further new development is the establishment of expert panels to assist in gender-related cases. Advice from gender experts should assist in overcoming historical gender biases in commission decisions.

    Perhaps the most promising tool is the change to the commission’s modern awards objective, which requires it to eliminate gender-based undervaluation of work and provide workplace conditions that facilitate women’s full economic participation each time it reviews an award.

    Among other things, this requirement is likely to result in provisions that ensure part-time work is treated equally to full-time work and ensure a better balance between work and caring responsibilities.

    Amending awards is likely to be particularly important for women given that almost three in five of the workers on awards are women. Men are mainly on negotiated agreements.

    If the commission wanted to, it could hold a wide-ranging inquiry into the many factors that have contributed to gender-based undervaluation of women’s work.

    It could also review entire industries and occupations that are female-dominated, upgrading multiple awards at the same time. This would avoid lengthy and costly reviews of individual awards.

    What’s likely in 2024

    The Fair Work Commission’s resolve to make lasting change will be tested by several matters currently before it.

    The commission is due to issue its final decision in the case lodged by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, the Health Services Union, and the United Workers Union on the value of the work done by workers in aged care.

    An initial interim decision delivered in 2022 awarded some – but not all – of these workers a 15% increase, finding that work in feminised industries had been historically undervalued and the reason for that undervaluation is likely to be gender-based”.

    Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke backed the decision, saying it was merely the “first step”.

    Another application, for nurses and midwives outside of aged care, was lodged by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation in February this year.

    The commission has already started the process of grappling with gender-based undervaluation in modern awards, commissioning research that documents the segregation of women and men into different occupations and industries.

    Further research documenting the history of a select group of female-dominated modern awards and identifying the extent to which common elements indicate gender-based undervaluation, is due to be released in April.

    It will feed into the annual wage review due by the middle of the year.

    How to be bold

    Gender-based undervaluation of women’s work won’t be eradicated by incremental adjustments.

    Here are three bold steps the commission could take:

    • grant a minimum interim 12% increase (one estimate of Australia’s national gender pay gap) across the board for female-dominated awards in this year’s annual wage review
    • develop new systems for classifying work and ascribing work value, breaking with the previous standards built around skills and qualifications in male dominated occupations
    • better consider the uneven bargaining power in industries such as nursing where governments fund care work and try to restrain costs.

    The changes to the Fair Work Act that allow multi-employer bargaining are a start, but unlikely alone to correct the undervaluation of women’s work.

    In female-dominated industries where collective bargaining is non-existent or ineffective, the commission should step in and further increase wages.

    The Fair Work Commission has been given the tools. This should be the year it applies them.


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  • The latest taxation statistics reveal the massive gender pay gap across the whole economy

    The latest taxation statistics reveal the massive gender pay gap across the whole economy

    by Greg Jericho in The Guardian

    Greg Jericho

    Chief Economist

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    Originally published in The Guardian on August 11, 2022

    The 2019-20 taxation statistics released this week by the ATO provide a plethora of data that reveals with precision the salaries of people by location, occupation age and importantly, gender.

    The 2019-20 taxation statistics released this week by the ATO provide a plethora of data that reveals with precision the salaries of people by location, occupation age and importantly, gender.

    Labour market and fiscal policy director, Greg Jericho, undertook a deep dive into the data. He notes in his column in Guardian Australia that in 91% of over 1,000 separate occupation groups from Nightclub DJ through to Magistrates and Judges, men have a higher median income than do women.

    The data reveals that women are less likely to work in higher paying occupations, and perhaps more damning those occupations with high levels of female participation are more likely to be low paid than are jobs which are mostly done by men.

    It is clear that work traditionally done by women is much lower paid than stereotypically traditional male jobs.

    But it is not just those occupations where the imbalance occurs. Even in jobs where women are the majority of workers, men will likely have a higher median salary and be more likely to be paid over $90,000 a year and be within the top two tax brackets.

    Women for example make up 57% of a journalists, and yet account for just 46% of all journalists earnings between $90,000 and $180,000 and a mere 36% of those earning above $180,000.

    The data highlights that the gender pay gap is not just about being paid the same hourly rate for the same work, but who gets the opportunity to work more hours, and who is more likely to be given roles that pay higher wages.

    It reveals a deep structural issue within our economy in which even in jobs largely done by women, the men in those occupations will most likely be paid more.


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  • Paid Parental Leave for Fathers Advances Parental Equality

    Paid Parental Leave for Fathers Advances Parental Equality

    by Alison Pennington in Medium

    Alison Pennington

    Senior Economist

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    Originally published in Medium on August 26, 2019

    Rising pressure on individuals and families to meet their caring needs is the “human face” of decline in workplace protections and bargaining power that has gathered pace since 2013. Meanwhile, the need for fathers and male spouses to take on more caring and household labour is routinely discussed in the public domain. But how have Australia’s work/care policies worked to support a redistribution of caring and household labour to males and fathers?

    In this commentary, Centre for Future Work Economist Alison Pennington reports on a timely roundtable discussion held with work/care policy experts on Iceland’s “father’s quota” parental leave system, and the future for paid parental leave in Australia – co-hosted with the Nordic Policy Centre.

    Research presented by leading Icelandic academic Dr. Ásdís Aðalbjörg Arnalds on the day shows that paid parental leave for both parents at wage replacement levels is key to building more equal workplaces, families and communities, and a modern dual work/care model.


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