Multi Employer Bargaining and Gender Equity

Seems my newsletter last week was right on point; Tony Burke felt the pressure from business groups when they indicated that the new Multi-Employer Bargaining arrangements would probably lead to strike actions.  As a result, the bill is now being amended to require a majority vote in each workplace, on whether to pursue multi-employer agreement, take industrial action and approve any final agreement. 

This, however, still has potential implications for businesses that don’t currently have unions members on their payroll.  Multi-Employer Bargaining is not being removed.  If you are part of an industry that does have union representation, your business could be targeted.  I would urge you to start to consider how you would handle a multi-employer agreement if the union came knocking on your door. On a very simple point: Do you know what the unions right of entry provisions are?

What are the chances that your employees would say no and that they are happy with their current pay and conditions? Maybe a few but a majority?

I would make the point I made last week again. While you can’t stop your employees talking to the union or vice versa, you can try to reduce their impact if you start building on what are probably already solid relationships now and work on areas such as: employee engagement, job satisfaction, wellbeing, flexible working arrangements, and perhaps productivity-based pay increases.  Perhaps you also give some thought to how our next topic covered in the new IR Bill, gender equity, could benefit this as well.

The Australian Government as part of their Secure Jobs Better Pay Bill has made a commitment to improve job security and to put gender equity at the centre of the workplace relations system. 

Have you noticed the change from gender equality to gender equity?  If you did then well done but are we certain what the difference is.

Here is my quick attempt to describe the difference:

• Gender Equality is ensuring each gender has the equal opportunity.
• Gender Equity can be described as: working to correct the historical wrongs that have occurred due to the lack of equality.

Did you know the current Gender Pay Gap is 14.1%.  In May 2022 women’s average weekly ordinary full-time earnings across all industries was $1609.00 compared to men’s $1872.90.  This means that on average women earn $263.90 less per week than men. 

Gender Equity is more than just whether females are paid the same as males and can be measured in several ways through like-to-like gaps, level gaps and organisation wide gaps.  Those organisations that are committed to gender equity will ensure:

• Wages and conditions of jobs are assessed in a non-discriminatory way. 
• The organisation structure does not impede female employees access to work-based training, promotion, or flexible working arrangements.

So, what might this mean and look like for a small to medium sized business.

If you have employees covered under an award or agreement, wages are typically set.  The award system does not discriminate based on gender; therefore it is potentially less likely to be an issue for these level employees.  However, if you are a business that pays over award or perhaps pay people based on the time, they have spent in a job rather than paying for the level of the job you may want to think about how you arrive at your decision to do so.  You might even use the award classification structure differently.  I’m not saying that you can’t do this, it is just important that it is done in a fair and consistent way and there are no unconscious biases impacting your decisions.   

So as a leader in your business be it MD, CEO, GM, COO where might you start? I have put together an initial checklist and guide to help you.  

It is important that you build your awareness and understanding around the concepts and issues surrounding pay equity and equality. 

1. Be committed to and support the need for Gender Equity, it should be a topic for discussion at your management meeting.   
2. Know the law in relation to remuneration and working conditions for award and non-award employees.  If you don’t know what your obligations are please reach out, we can help you through this.
3. Commit to conducting a Pay Equity Audit – this could be done by you, or you could get an external Consultant to conduct the process.
4. Develop an action plan to address any gender pay equity concerns. 
5. Ensure fairness and consistency when determining remuneration for employees.
6. Follow a consistent and transparent procedure for promotion or even termination
7. Ensure performance management pay decisions are merit based and transparent and in line with performance rating.
8. Review Remuneration at least every 12 months to ensure that you have equity.
9. Ensure that you have a merit-based recruitment policy and procedure in place and that your managers are trained on unconscious bias in recruitment, we all have biases!  What is important here is that we can identify what they are and actively work to remove them during recruitment and employment.  Unintended gender bias in hiring, promotion, performance and pay decisions can lead to pay inequality.

Any unfairness or perceived unfairness can negatively impact workplace productivity, employee engagement and morale; as well as reduce your access to new talent and retention of existing.  Pay equity is not only a moral and legal imperative, but studies also show that gender equality can lead to improved organisation performance and productivity.

If you feel that some of this has hit the mark let me challenge you to give this some thought over the next week, start a review of your salaries and positions and see if you can see any gaps.   If you are like many others, I know you may not get the time to concentrate on this topic.  What about this? If you don’t find the time please reach out and I will be happy to help you with an initial analysis at a special rate.

If you would like any further information on how you can ensure your business has fair and consistent process around gender equity please feel free to contact me via email paiget@avenue2hr.com.au or simply book in a time to chat with me on the link below.

https://calendly.com/avenue2hr/introductory-call