New paid maternity leave is not perfect, but it’s a step

Outback Gazz says:

09:02pm | 21/06/10

Hey Roxy - it’s not about competing, it’s about survival !!!

roxy says:

07:55pm | 21/06/10

Do you really want us to be able to compete with China?

Marto says:

05:10pm | 21/06/10

Well said Sarah.  I have worked in senior HR/Recruitment roles within large blue chips for over 12 years, and there is no such beast as the underpaid woman. 

Pay can be essentially broken down into 2 main sections - those on or near award wages, and those on salary.  Salary is market reflected, and allows in the main for the individual to negotiate (within parameters) their salary package.  As an employer, at no stage did either myself or my staff willingly operate under an agenda to offer women less money than their male counterparts.  Decisions were made based on key criteria: experience, qualifications, cultural fit, employment history, and market scarcity, and the salaries offered were based on the above.

If there is any pay gaps in the negotiated salary range, it is for this reason alone - men are better negotiators and are can articulate their relative worth better than women.  As an employer, like any employer, you will not pay a cent more than the other party is prepared to accept. 

So who’s fault is it then REALLY?  Oops, that would make me a rampant misogynist…..

DJ says:

02:14pm | 21/06/10

I saw a comedian once that suggested that the reason that men get higher wage than women is because in hostage situations the negotiator always says ‘at least let the women and children go’, thought that was hilarious

Zac says:

02:10pm | 21/06/10

You need to read more I think Sarah - check out the cases that have been prosecuted.

You’re right of course about the same impact if a man takes a year off to go travel - the financial impact would be the same - the interesting thing is that you must feel that having a holiday and having a child are equivalent.

Jamie says:

01:22pm | 21/06/10

Here, here.  I’m glad I’m not the only one that’s mystified by this so called ‘pay gap’.  I’ve never seen one example in the twenty years I’ve been working and I’ve asked all the women I work with, neither have they.
Also, paid maternity leave is rubbish, because a) it discriminates against anyone that’s not a female of childbearing age and b) if someone needs financial support to bring a child into the world, maybe they should think twice, because they probably can’t afford it.  Here’s an idea, how about a maternity leave trading scheme.

Cougar says:

10:43pm | 22/06/10

KH, let the mummies have their “flexible arrangements”.  As long as they want time out of the office to look after bub or pick up the kids from school, they have no right to object if the childfree babes in the office head down to the pub while they do it.

This cash-for-parenting era has created an interesting boom; monied-up and sex-starved new fathers ripe for the picking at Friday night after-work drinks who have the perfect excuse; “working back late tonight dear to cover Sally and Helen’s maternity leave. Don’t wait up” .

Sandra says:

10:21pm | 22/06/10

Oh Muttley! The old |cash handouts are needed to ensure the future of the species| schtick, followed by the old |get the childless out of the gene poo| bank-hander.  Gee! Never heard those ones before!  Where was the old faithful favoured by the child-makers; the my-children-are-the-taxpayers-of-the-feeyooocha-who-will-wipe-your-bum-in-the-oldies’-home chestnut.

If it is true that bribes are the key driver of human population growth then the majority next generation are going to be quality lot hey? Imagine future conversations like, “why did you parents have you?” “oh coz it was worth ten grand.” This is, of course, assuming that this nation’s future inhabitants can communicate beyond grunts.  Probably just as well my non-existant decendents will not have to contend with such a dystopia.

Hi Tim *waves*

DJ says:

02:11pm | 21/06/10

KH - it’s more expensive to travel in school holidays why would you want to travel at peak season?

Anne71 says:

12:27pm | 21/06/10

@Muttley - “But it is pretty important to ensure the propogation of the species” - so you don’t think we’re propagating enough already, with the planet already overpopulated, or close to it?

Muttley says:

10:40am | 21/06/10

Fortunately unionists understand that not every advancement will benefit every member. THAT is the point of a union. To ensure no one is left behind. I know that is a point that the Howardites and business council cronies will have trouble comprehending. So the irony here is that the barb you were trying to throw actually highlights the purpose of uniions. And no, having children is not a right. But it is pretty important to ensure the propogation of the species. And that raises an interesting point. Maybe this generation of deliberately childless children is natures way of strengthening the gene pool?

KH says:

10:32am | 21/06/10

Agreed.  Its all very well to crap on about ‘family friendly hours’ - but I know what that means - every year, I have trouble getting holidays at xmas because I have no children, therefore apparently I am happy to work over that period.  In fact, not just at the end of the year - any time of year when there are ‘school holidays’ or some such.  Then there are the hours - these people are looked upon sympathetically when they leave at 3pm, but if I did it, I probably wouldn’t have a job.  What, I don’t have other things in my life I would rather be doing?

Eric says:

03:24am | 22/06/10

Roxy, mechanics earn more in basic pay than social workers because they produce real results - cars that work - as opposed to fuzzy warm feelings.

There’s a good reason why some jobs are considered more valuable than others. If women want to earn as much as a mechanic, the answer is simple - go to a tech college and learn to fix cars.

roxy says:

07:51pm | 21/06/10

There are no workplace quota systems in place to redress historical disadvantage in Australia - never have been.  If you want to advertise a job for only women, or only men, or only aboriginal people, you have to apply to the Anti Discrimination Board and argue that it is fair, in the circumstances.

The issue of pay equity applies between the same jobs, and different jobs requiring the same qualifications. You are right, you can’t legislate for men to work in low-paying industries and women to work in high-paying ones. The issue - tho i admit it doesn’t apply to all jobs in all industries -  is with how those jobs got their value originally. Historically, the way jobs have been evaluated (under awards) and hence paid systematically undervalued the ‘soft’ skills that women traditionally brought to jobs - negotiating, empathising etc, because they were seen as just things women did, not skills to be valued. For example, why do mechanics earn more in basic pay (ie not including overtime) than social workers?

The other issue is that male dominated industries tend to be capital intensive. Productivity improvements are easier to achieve in those industries due to technological innovation: there are many ways to improve the number of widgets made per hour, and pass on some of those benefits to the employees. This is much harder in service industries, which tend to be dominated by women.

It is a complicated issue, and you have to be able to empathise with the situation of workers who have different experiences to you. For every example where you can say “this man and this woman do the same job and get paid the same”, someone else has an example of the opposite. And they don’t pursue it because of fear of losing their job. and often the legal remedies aren’t clear. The aggregrate data transcend the anecdotal experience of you and me, and show that there is a consistent and widening gap.

Adam Diver says:

11:25am | 21/06/10

Apologies for the formatting, paragraphs would improve the read.

@ marina real discrimination occurs with these quota systems in place. Having to have a certain number of women/minorities in a workplace is so discriminatory its not funny. Even if the pay discrepency still exists, which personally I have never seen it is prosecuted severly if proven (which should be fairly easy to do). But that is not what the pay discrepency debate is about and it is not what ms/mrs burrow is reffering too.

Marina Go says:

09:17am | 21/06/10

At the risk of antagonising you further, might I suggest that Sharan is referring to pay inequity between men and women working within the same industries and doing the same jobs.  I can assure you that does exist and that I have personally experienced it.

Observer says:

09:52pm | 22/06/10

Single and childless people are not even on the ACTU’s radar. They are just the milche cows for the overburdened yuppies with kids who want to have the baby and their Lexus too. The “working families” sloganeering from the ALP and their bedfellow, the ACTU, is marginalising those of us who aren’t actively breeding small kids, and at the same time fostering a sense of entitlement in those who are.

Not all women benefit from paid parental leave Shane. Not all women are mothers. Paid parental leave benefits household with children.

The Harvester Judgement was considered a watershed in its time. For those who need reminding, Judge Higgins established that a male living wage had to be reasonable and fair so as to “maintain a man, his wife and three children in frugal comfort”. Please bookmark the adjective “frugal”.

This also meant that young people were paid less than this wage and that women were paid less. It was argued that because women did not have a family to support, it was justifiable to pay them less than men.

Feminists fought this demonstrable inequity and by the 1980s there was legislation to enforce equal pay for equal work. Arguably there is some disparity today between male and female income BUT it remains that there is no difference between male and female earnings for the same work.

However, the myriad of cash benefits for parents and the introduction of paid maternity leave is the Harvester Decision by stealth. Tax deductions and rebates for child and wife related- expenses are now supplementing what was once the higher male wage. Most women who are mothers are in a relationship and so paid maternity leave supplements household income including the male wage earner.  These reforms are not enhancements of gender equity (that is, they are not measures to keep women in the workforce), but rather, a return to the old male breadwinner policies.  With four out of ten households paying no net tax and mothers being paid for not working, it is clear that childless singles and couples are paying for this largesse. Instead of wages favouring the childed household, income redistribution favours the childed household and punishes non-parents—including women, thank you feminists. Obviously some sisters are more equal than others.

PPL and all the other cash handouts are little more than bald social-engineering at the direct expense of childless singles and couples so that modern yuppie parents can maintain their pre-child lifestyle.

reader says:

02:06pm | 21/06/10

The leave is equally available to partners where it is not possible for the mother to take the leave or who decides to return to work for family financial reasons.

It is mothers who mainly undertake the caring of infants - not exclusively and that is why the leave is equally available.

Deliberately Barren Jezebel says:

10:11pm | 22/06/10

Eric, I think what you are trying to say is that Sharan’s agenda is dressed up as “equal opportunity” when what is really being sought is an equality of outcomes.

“This must include the legislated right to request family friendly hours for all people with caring responsibilities. ” Sharan,  as an ex-union delegate I want to ask; what about the sizable group of other people in the workplace who do not have “caring responsibilities”? They have a life of their own—partners, friends, hobbies, volunteering. Why should they be working the unfriendly late nights, the weekend and the public holidays—without the penality rates, thanks— because others cannot organise their own lives?

“...it has sometimes come down to the choice of having a child or paying the bills.” 
Nonsense! It appears that modern, greedy, entitlement-poisoned child-makers, rather than realising that there are opportunity costs with any decision, instead want it all; the McMansion with filled with mod-cons, they want the affluent lifestyle delivered by two incomes, they want kids, they want to maintain the DINK lifestyle they had before they whelped, they want (or at least take) the perks given to them for having kids (both in the workplace and on the tax returns) AND they want to “spend quality time” with the kid and someone….ANYONE BUT THEM…must pick up the tab.

If they are not fast-tracked to the corner office, if they are not given work-from-home priority, if they are overlooked for promotion because Suzie—- who is childless—can actually put more hours into the project than them— “wha! wha! wha! Discrimination (tm)” they will cry.

Parents, cut the whopping sense of entitlement. This is a Mummy-wants-to-have-it-all-and-not-have-her-life-change-one-bit issue, not at all a civil-rights issue and frankly, hearing the child-makers whinge and tart themselves up as civil-rights victims is a slap in the face to classes of people who really do experience actual discrimination.

“This reform is like Medicare or universal superannuation – once it is there, it can be improved on, but it had to be there in the first place.”
Superannuation? Damn straight! A good example of *self-funded* social policy. Perhaps the long -term strategy of policy is to wean the child-makers off their middle-class welfare addictions and encourage them to—heaven forfend—be responsible for their own lifestyle choices and be less dependant on an unsustainable tax-payer funded system.

Eric says:

03:21am | 22/06/10

Phoebe, just because you think you should be paid more, that doesn’t mean there is a pay gap. A man in your job would get the same money.

I believe a fireman should be paid more than a movie actress - does that mean there’s a pay gap against men?

It’s not about your opinion, it’s about how much the market values certain kinds of work.

Pheobe says:

10:57pm | 21/06/10

The pay gap is there, in various industries.  Eg - I get paid the same as a school cleaner and I manage an NGO. It’s about half of what I’d get in the public sector. My industry is 95% women. Why? Because people play on the fact women care enough about their clients not to leave them for higher paid work elsewhere.  Time the financial blackmail stopped.

And time ppl like you stopped making unfounded statements on blogs when the facts point elsewhere. In this case, the nations top industrial officers are representing the gender pay gap in courts, and even the government has acknowledged it, so if anyone would know the facts, surely they would?

Eric says:

06:07pm | 21/06/10

Redem, women already get equal pay for work of equal value - as they should.

Feminists want women to get equal pay for work of less than equal value. This can only be done at the expense of men losing out on fair pay for their own work.

The union movement has decided to sell out one half of the workers for the unearned benefit of the other half.

Robert Smissen Rural SA says:

03:07pm | 21/06/10

It’s called divide & conquer

redem says:

01:59pm | 21/06/10

why do you see this as women advancing at the “expense of women”?  Actually most men I know support equal pay for work of equal value.  I can’t think of a man I know who doesn’t.  Maybe they are just people who understand that it hasn’t anything to do about threatening men but being treated fairly.

Maybe you just don’t like women who want to work?