Beyond The New Millennium—Forward to the Past, Back to the Future

In the latter half of the 1990s, women’s experience of federal government failings and its deliberate introduction of an industrial system hampering women’s claims to economic justice propelled women into turning to the states. State governments and state industrial tribunals might, they hoped, treat women’s claims seriously or at least listen – and possibly act. This ‘turn to the states’ approach brought with it a change in terminology, too. The turn of the century, from the 1990s into the 2000s, saw the language governing women’s wage demands switch from ‘equal pay’ to ‘pay equity’. The NSW Pay Equity Inquiry 1997 set the ground for what was to come, at least in principle. Tasmania moved first. In the State Wage Case 2000 the industrial commission set a pay equity principle driven by submissions from UnionsTasmania, the Pay Equity Task Force and the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, and informed by elements delineated in the NSW Pay Equity Inquiry 1997. Still, scope remained for disputation over the definition of ‘remuneration’: did it include over-award payments, a longstanding point of contention for equal pay, as women are disproportionally excluded from them. That sex/gender discrimination need or need not be proven remained ambiguous, rather than being ruled out as a first step requirement creating a barrier. On the positive side, however, actual work value was firmly set as the target, not a need to show changes in or to work, or upgraded duties and enhanced work components. NSW improved on this in Re Crown Librarians, Library Officer and Archivists Award Proceedings 2002 Award, then childcare workers claims were run in NSW, Queensland, Victoria, NT, SA, and the ACT. Problems of true valuation remained, yet the possibility of rectifying this at state level was undercut by the High Court’s decision in State of NSW & Ors v. Commonwealth (Workplace Relations case 2006). The High Court’s ruling the Work Choices Act 2005 (Cth) valid meant that the vast bulk of wage claims were removed from state jurisdiction into the federal arena. With centralised wage fixing no longer the key to wage setting federally, women’s best chances for fair pay rates was removed, too. Individual bargaining power was triumphant, strong unions girding their loins before going into battle with employers, at relatively matched weights. Lower wage earners (mostly women), lacking union strength even where unionised, were left dependent on the system to deliver a ‘living wage’. The ‘living wage’ was to be decided by what became the ‘Fair Work Commission’. What chance of equal pay or pay equity being addressed effectively or at all, much less real work value of women’s jobs being considered against the backdrop of past failure to evaluated traditional women’s fields from the outset. Yet – the political cycle turned. The 2007 federal election swept away Work Choices. Nevertheless, enterprise/collective bargaining/multi-employer bargaining remained. Women faced continuing pay gap (and hence pensions gap) stultification or back-stepping.