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Labor sets sights on ‘not good enough’ gender pay gap
The opposition is calling for greater transparency over the gender pay gap in Australia, with a proposal to name and shame businesses who underpay women.
Labor sets sights on ‘not good enough’ gender pay gap
The opposition is calling for greater transparency over the gender pay gap in Australia, with a proposal to name and shame businesses who underpay women.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese announced on Monday that more action was needed to slash Australia’s pay disparity between women and men, which is currently seeing women who work full-time make 86.6 per cent of a their male counterparts’ salary.
The leader of the opposition said his proposal would see companies with more than 250 staff members publicly share information about the gender pay gap within the organisation.
He highlighted that currently companies report gender pay data to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) with the results remaining private, which does not discourage employers from paying women less.
The opposition also said they would change prohibitions to secrecy clauses, which currently make it illegal for staff members in certain situations to discuss their salary with their co-workers.
“Now, that obviously has a significant constraint on employees who are bargaining for pay rises, so if someone was offering a woman less than they are offering a man to do the exact same job, then that should be transparent,” Mr Albanese said on 3AW radio.
He also said the public sector needed an audit to ensure gender pay parity, while announcing he would look to lift the wages for female-dominated industries.
“Industries that are dominated by women have fallen behind industries dominated by men in terms of pay,” he said.
Mr Albanese cited ABS data released in February which showed the pay gap narrowed to 13.4 per cent in Australia during the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite the improvement, women working full-time still earned $242 less than men each week, on average.
“That’s not good enough in 2021,” he said.
The leader of the opposition said it was bad economics having female workers getting paid on average less than their male counterparts.
“It is really bad economics. The society benefits from people participating in it in full, including the workforce,” he said.
“We know that low wages, which have been stagnant since 2013 are really holding back our economy,” he concluded.
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