Labor vows to tackle gender pay inequity through Fair Work Act

Labor has pledged to strengthen the industrial umpire’s powers to tackle the gender wage gap and help increase pay packets for workers in low-paid, female-dominated sectors.

Tanya Plibersek in the May Day crowd in Sydney. Picture: The Australian/Monique Harmer

Anthony Albanese has pledged to strengthen the industrial umpire’s powers to tackle the gender wage gap and help increase pay packets for workers in low-paid, female-dominated sectors.

The Opposition Leader said a Labor government would make gender pay equity an objective of the Fair Work Act and introduce a statutory Equal Remuneration Principle to guide the way the umpire considered equal pay cases.

Mr Albanese said he would introduce two new expert panels within the Fair Work Commission to help deliver better outcomes for women.

A new “care and community sector” panel would hear award cases for the care sector while a “pay equity” panel would hear equal remuneration cases. Each would be backed by a dedicated research unit.

Labor argues that one of the main causes of the gender pay gap is low pay and poor conditions in female-dominated sectors such as aged care, early childhood education and disability care.

“The principle that men and women should be paid the same wage for the same work is such an obvious one – and yet the gender pay gap is still far too wide,” Mr Albanese said. “A government I lead will take steps toward closing this gap, ensuring women and those working in the care sector get the pay and conditions they deserve.”

Opposition spokeswoman for women, Tanya Plibersek, who did not attend the ALP’s campaign launch, said Australian women had been “continually let down by the Morrison government.”

“The Liberals have done next to nothing to address the gender pay gap over the last decade in office,” Ms Plibersek said.

But Industrial Relations Minister Michaelia Cash said the gender pay gap was 13.8 per cent, which was “significantly lower than the 17.4 per cent we inherited from Labor in 2013”.

Senator Cash said the principle of equal remuneration for work of equal or comparable value was already enshrined in the Fair Work Act.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil said women were “bearing the brunt of the cost of living crisis” and Labor’s changes would “create a system which seeks to fix the problem rather than preserve the status quo”.