A history of pay equity

The following timeline charts the major Australian pay equity milestones since federation:

• 1907 The Federal Harvester Case establishes a basic wage for males on the basis of their `breadwinner' status.
• 1912 In the Fruitpickers Case, the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission rejects an argument that the male and female basic wage be the same.
• 1919 The basic female wage is set at 54% of the male basic wage.
• 1943 The basic female wage is raised to 75% under the National Security (Female Minimum Rates) Regulation.
• 1958 NSW becomes the first Australian industrial jurisdiction to legislate for equal pay in the Female Rates (Amendment) Act 1958.
• 1969 The first Federal equal pay case establishes the principle of equal pay for equal work.
• 1972 The second Federal equal pay case widens the 1969 principle to equal pay for work of equal value.
• 1973 In NSW, the Industrial Relations Commission hands down the State Equal Pay Decision.
• 1985 The doctrine of `comparable worth' is rejected by the Federal Commission because of the threat posed by it to existing wage relativities and wage fixing principles.
• 1988 Award restructuring principles to create appropriate relativities between categories within an award are adopted in the National Wage Case.
• 1989 The Minimum Rates Adjustment principle is incorporated in the National Wage Case decision. It allows for minimum rates and supplementary payments to be compared to rates in other awards. 
• 1991 The NSW Industrial Relations Act 1991 establishes a framework for enterprise-based negotiations. The legislation carries over equal pay provisions from the former Industrial Arbitration Act 1940.
• 1993 The Commonwealth legislates for equal remuneration orders, based on ILO Convention 100. 
• 1996 The NSW Industrial Relations Act 1996 is passed by the NSW Parliament. It updates a previous definition of equal pay to "equal remuneration for men and women doing work of equal or comparable value". The Commonwealth Workplace Relations Act 1996 is passed, which carries over the Equal Remuneration Division of the former Commonwealth legislation. 

90 years towards pay equity

Variously called 'pay equity', 'comparable worth' or 'equal pay for work of equal value', the basic concept behind pay equity is that men and women should be paid equally for work that is of either equal or comparable value. Thus, women who perform work of equal skill and responsibility to men under the same or comparable conditions, determined according to an objective measure should be paid equally.

The focus of pay equity in Australia has been generally concentrated at the national level. Pay equity issues have largely been addressed by wage fixing tribunals within the industrial relations system, rather than by direct legislation. In NSW, changes in women's wages have been tightly bound up with developments in the Federal industrial relations system.

There has been a significant shift in approach to pay equity issues this century. The Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission has moved from its rejection in 1912 of the argument that the basic wage for men and women be the same, to the introduction of the principle of equal pay for equal work in the first equal pay case in 1969. Subsequent equal pay cases in the 1970's and 1980's have continued to develop equal pay principles.

Further developments occurred through the National Wage Cases of the late 1980's and early 1990's. These cases established appropriate relativities within awards, endorsed a Minimum Rates Adjustment Principle (which allowed the comparison of rates across awards) and introduced a system of arbitrated safety net wage adjustments to protect low paid workers. These federal decisions, which have flowed on to NSW, have resulted in benefits for women's pay and the recognition of their skills.

Despite Australia's somewhat chequered pay equity history, its centralised wage fixing system since the early 1970s has produced better outcomes for women than most other countries around the world. The female/male wage differential in Australia is among the smallest of the industrialised economies.

While most gains in equal pay for Australian women have occurred through wage fixing, there have recently been attempts to address pay equity issues through legislation. The Industrial Relations Act 1996 (NSW) and the recently enacted Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cth) both have provisions which are aimed at removing pay inequities, although the mechanisms under these Acts for doing so differ significantly.

References

EPAC, Income Dispersion in Australia: Recent Trends and Research, 1995.

NSW Pay Equity Taskforce, A Woman's Worth: Pay Equity and the Undervaluation of Women's Skills, Issues Paper, August 1996.

Further information

Women's Equity Bureau
NSW Office of Industrial Relations
McKell Building, 2-24 Rawson Place
Sydney NSW 2000
Phone 131 628
Fax (02) 9020 4700