ACTU Submission on Sex Discrimination
Tuesday, 19 August 2008
ACTU Submission on Sex Discrimination for the Inquiry into the effectiveness of the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act 1984 in eliminating discrimination and promoting gender equality.
Introduction
The ACTU is the peak body representing 47 unions and almost 2 million working Australians. We welcome this opportunity to make a submission to the Inquiry into the effectiveness of the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act 1984 in eliminating discrimination and promoting gender equality. Our submission focuses on discrimination in employment.
The introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA or the Act) almost 25 years ago, has played an important role in protecting women from discrimination and stating the social unacceptability of sex based discrimination and harassment. However, women still fare worse than men on a number of key measures of equality in employment:
- Women earn on average 18.4% less than men
- Women have $3 to the $10 men have in their superannuation accounts
- Women are almost twice as likely to be under-employed than men
- Over half of all working women experience sexual harassment
- Women are under-represented in senior positions in organizations
- Women are over-represented in industries characterised by casual, part-time and low paid employment and
- Inequality of opportunities for (primarily female) employees with caring responsibilities is emerging as a key form of systemic discrimination.
Discrimination in employment can impose severe personal costs on the individual employee, including stress, victimisation, loss of self esteem, career damage, job loss and financial hardship.
The costs to employers can include low staff morale, a negative work environment, low productivity, high staff turnover and inability to attract and retain skilled employees.
More generally, disadvantaging a section of the community on a systemic basis also has broader social and economic costs.
The economic cost of under-utilisation of a highly educated and experienced section of the labour market such as women of child rearing age is well documented.
New framework
The role of the Sex Discrimination Act in resolving individual complaints is critical and needs strengthening. However, in our submission, substantive equality between men and women workers will not be achieved if the primary mechanism continues to be remedial orders arising from individual complaints. A new framework to address systemic discrimination is required which contains three elements:
1. A positive approach including the restatement of the objective of the Act as achieving substantive equality between men and women and the introduction of a duty to eliminate sex discrimination;
2. New regulatory models that actively uncover discrimination, assist organisations to eliminate discrimination and prevent its recurrence, and enforce non-compliance; and
3. Improvements in the way in which complaints are handled.
Shortfalls to be addressed
In our submission there are some shortfalls in the current regime which should also be addressed:
- The focus of the Sex Discrimination Act on individual complaints does not facilitate resolving systemic discrimination;
- There is inadequate advocacy support for complainants;
- The various regulatory agencies that deal with equal opportunity for women and the elimination of discrimination have limited rights to initiate investigations and claims of systemic discrimination;
- There are insufficient regulatory tools to encourage and assist organisations to prevent discrimination;
- The complaints process is time consuming, overly legalistic and costly; and
- The enforcement provisions in the Act are insufficient both in terms of regulation and the level of punitive damages, particularly when compared to similar jurisdictions such as occupational health and safety and consumer protection legislation.
We are hopeful that this Inquiry brings about changes that both address the current inadequacies in the Act as well as build its capacity to address a more modern understanding of systemic discrimination and encourage genuine progress towards gender equality in the workforce.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
1. A new framework for the Act which strengthens the individual complaints based model and better addresses class and systemic discrimination.
2. A new Object of the Act to achieve substantive equal opportunity.
3. Introduction into the Act of a positive duty to eliminate discrimination as far as is reasonably practicable.
4. A greater public agency role for the prevention of discrimination.
5. Greater synergy between the remedies against discriminatory behaviour and the promotion of positive measures to eliminate discrimination.
6. More regulatory tools to effectively eliminate discriminatory behaviour which provides preventative, enforceable regulations and punitive disincentives.
7. An improved complaint handling process that is free, efficient, and non-legalistic.
8. A role for Fair Work Australia in the resolution of discrimination complaints arising from the workplace.
Download the file below to read the entire submission.