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ACCELERATING ACTION TOWARDS CLOSING THE GENDER PAY GAP IN AUSTRALIAN WORKPLACES

Submitted by ep_admin on Tue, 04/04/2023 - 05:30

ACCELERATING ACTION TOWARDS CLOSING THE GENDER PAY GAP IN AUSTRALIAN WORKPLACES

4 Apr 2023

Australia is taking significant steps towards closing the gender pay gap, with new legislation addressing both the direct and indirect discrimination women face in the workplace.

Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023

On 30 March 2023, the Australian Parliament passed the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Closing the Gender Pay Gap) Bill 2023.

This Bill is a significant step forward in advancing gender equality in Australian workplaces, in response to a 2021-22 Review (the Review) of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (the Act).

The Review was released in March 2022, and concluded that the gender pay gap in Australia was not closing at a fast enough rate. It made 10 recommendations to accelerate change in workplace gender inequality and reduce the reporting burden on businesses.

The Bill, which is supported by two remade Legislative Instruments – the Workplace Gender Equality (Gender Equality Standards) Instrument 2023 and the Workplace Gender Equality (Matters in relation to Gender Equality Indicators) Instrument 2023 – amends the current legislative framework to deliver in part or in full on six of the 10 recommendations of the Review.

Together, these legislative reforms will drive for employer action, transparency and accountability and will help speed up progress towards gender equality in the workplace.

The Bill will, for the first time, allow the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) to publish gender pay gaps at an employer level, in addition to publishing the gender pay gap at a national, industry and occupational level.

Research indicates the value of publishing employer gender pay gaps in encouraging employers to address adverse gender dynamics in the workplace, and nudging individuals – both employers and employees – towards real-world action that will make change in their workplace.

Until now, WGEA has collected gender pay gap data from employers, but has not had the legislative authority to publish it. Instead, employers received this information in a confidential report.

WGEA will publish the first set of private sector employment gender pay gaps in early 2024, using data from the current reporting period, which ends on 31 March 2023. Data for Commonwealth public sector organizations will be based on the 1 January 2023 – 31 December 2023 reporting period. As private and public sector organizations follow different reporting timelines, the first publication of Commonwealth public sector organizations’ gender pay gaps will be published in late 2024 or early 2025.

If they choose to, employers will be able to provide a narrative related to their gender pay gap and the actions they are taking to address it.

This will sit alongside their gender pay gap information which will be published on WGEA’s website.

In addition, the Bill also:
• Amends the Act to rename current ‘minimum standards’ as ‘gender equality standards’, to reflect the increased ambitions of these measures to strengthen gender equality, improving outcomes for both women and men in the workplace.
• Strengthens the accountability of relevant employers to take action to improve gender equality in their workplaces, by requiring certain reports from WGEA – the Executive Summary and Industry Benchmark Report – to be given to all members of their governing body (such as the Board).
• Makes the Act consistent with its associated legislative instruments by including ‘sexual harassment’, ‘harassment on the ground of sex’, or ‘discrimination’ as gender equality indicators.

You can find out more about the Review here, and about the changes the Bill will make here.

AUSTRALIA’S SECURE JOBS BETTER PAY ACT: A GENDER FOCUS

Submitted by ep_admin on Tue, 04/04/2023 - 05:30

AUSTRALIA’S SECURE JOBS BETTER PAY ACT: A GENDER FOCUS

4 Apr 2023

Australia has enacted extensive workplace relations reforms with a strong focus on gender equality. The Secure Jobs Better Pay Act 2022 introduces a range of important changes to Australia’s workplace relations system.

Secure work and gender equality

The principles of job security and gender equality have now been embedded in the objects of Australia’s workplace relations legislation – the Fair Work Act 2009. This means the objectives of secure work and gender equality must be taken into account when the workplace relations tribunal – the Fair Work Commission – performs its functions, such as reviewing and setting minimum wages.

Pay equity

Previous barriers preventing the workplace relations system from effectively tackling the gender-based undervaluation of work have been removed, supporting the Fair Work Commission to order wage increases where appropriate. The changes clarify that the Fair Work Commission’s consideration of work value must be free from gender-based assumptions, and that it can consider broader comparisons between occupations and industries when hearing equal remuneration matters.

Two new expert panels for Pay Equity and the Care and Community Sector, and a dedicated research unit, will be established within the Fair Work Commission. New members with specific expertise in gender pay equity, anti-discrimination, and the care and community sector will sit on the Panels. These changes will ensure the proper knowledge, expertise, resources, and evidence is applied to effectively hear complex and technical pay equity claims and relevant award variation applications.

Stronger protections against discrimination and workplace sexual harassment

Gender identity, intersex status, and breastfeeding have been added to the list of protected attributes in Australia’s workplace relations legislation. Workers who experience discrimination based on these attributes will now have access to the Fair Work Commission’s fast, low-cost dispute resolution processes.

An express prohibition on sexual harassment in connection with work has also been added to the Fair Work Act, supported by a new dispute resolution process for workers to bring disputes about sexual harassment to the Fair Work Commission. The Commission may deal with such disputes in various ways, including by making a stop sexual harassment order to prevent further sexual harassment of a worker, prospective worker or person conducting a business or undertaking.

Pay transparency, parental leave, and flexible work

A new prohibition on pay secrecy clauses will provide employees with a positive right to disclose (or not) their remuneration and protect them from adverse action if they do. These changes are aimed at reducing discrimination and the gender pay gap by enabling employees to understand and gather more information about their remuneration.

From 6 June 2023, strengthened rights to request flexible working arrangements and extensions to unpaid parental leave will assist eligible employees to negotiate workplace flexibilities that suit both them and their employer. The changes legislate a fair and transparent process for responding to employee requests, and increase access to Fair Work Commission dispute resolution including conciliation, mediation or mandatory arbitration if the matter cannot be resolved at the workplace level.

For more information on the Secure Jobs, Better Pay package visit: www.dewr.gov.au/workplace-relations.

Fair Pay – how Berlin certification accelerates global implementation

Submitted by ep_admin on Mon, 04/03/2023 - 05:30

Fair Pay – how Berlin certification accelerates global implementation

3 Apr 2023

There is action on fair pay: The United Nations declared equality to be the most important cross-cutting issue of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. New equal pay laws have been passed or already implemented in many countries around the world. In Brussels, a new EU directive was adopted that will soon ensure more sanctions and the long overdue reversal of the burden of proof in European companies. And in Germany, more and more of the few Equal Pay plaintiffs are being proven right; most recently, the Federal Labor Court ruled in February that negotiating skills cannot be a justification for unfair pay.

But how can fair pay be implemented in everyday business? How can unjustified income differences be avoided? And how can a renewed widening of the gender pay gap and other gaps be avoided?

The Berlin-based non-profit FPI Fair Pay Innovation Lab used the pandemic-forced pause to take the next, very concrete steps toward equal opportunities and equality. Together with a team of international experts, FPI has developed a certification to guarantee that companies pay fairly.

The special quality of the UNIVERSAL FAIR PAY CHECK®, which has been recognized as a guarantee mark: The certification takes into account international legislation already in force and forthcoming legislation. Furthermore it can be carried out at any location in the world, regardless of size and number of employees, organizational form or industry. To guarantee the certification’s quality, a screening board of international experts from the UK, Iceland and Germany monitors the effectiveness of the three-stage certification. Companies and organizations can apply to become Fair Pay Analysts, Fair Pay Developers and Fair Pay Leaders, depending on their level of implementation and the size of the gender pay gap. The first companies to be recognized as Fair Pay Leaders came from Iceland, where particularly ambitious pay transparency laws are in place.

In the first quarter of 2023, the first German Fair Pay Leader was certified: the long-established car manufacturer BMW closed the pay gap for all 80,000 employees in Germany. As Fair Pay Leaders, companies commit to transparency – which is still voluntary in Germany – and communicate the size of their pay gaps. Here are the results for BMW: The company is certified with a non-adjusted gender pay gap of 1.3 percent and an adjusted gender pay gap of -0.9 percent. The certificate will be presented to the company together with PUMA Germany, which has developed from a Fair Pay Analyst to a Fair Pay Developer in a very short time, with GS1 Germany GmbH, Isar Kliniken GmbH and esentri AG on April 18 by the German Labor Minister Hubertus Heil, the patron of the fair pay certificate in Germany, at the BMW Representative Office in Berlin.

Links:

• More about the UNIVERSAL FAIR PAY CHECK®: https://universal-fair-pay-check.org
• Certified Companies: https://www.fpi-lab.org/en/certified-companies/ 
• UNIVERSAL FAIR PAY CHECK® as certification trademark: https://www.fpi-lab.org/en/certification-mark/
• FPI Analysepartner: https://www.fpi-lab.org/partner/
• PUMA Germany certified as Fair Pay Developer: https://about.puma.com/en/newsroom/corporate-news/2023/03-01-2023-paygap))

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