Queensland Leads on Equal Pay

Date: 03 April 2001

Queensland's pay equity inquiry report, released today, recommends the State IRC be given broad powers to ensure equal remuneration.

Commissioner Glenys Fisher's report recommends the IRC be given powers to ensure equal remuneration when it makes or varies awards, agreements and QWAs.

It also recommends:

- Amending the IR Act 1999 to define "remuneration" as it is defined in ILO Convention 100 Article 1(a).

Queensland Council of Unions secretary Grace Grace said this was a very broad definition which, because it was expressed in terms of remuneration, included overawards;

- Adopting an equal remuneration principle to guide the IRC; and

- Requiring work value to be assessed in any equal remuneration case but without any need to establish changes in work value (this has been a major barrier in other jurisdictions and the Queensland provision should make it easier to establish inequity.

The report also suggests that the Commission establish a minimum wage, to be reviewed annually.

The Beattie Government gave an undertaking in its election policy that it would fully implement the recommendations of the inquiry.

The QCU's Grace Grace said soon after the report's release that, "on first glance, there's some pretty good stuff in it".

She said the draft equal remuneration principle was "very extensive and most welcome".

She was also pleased that the report recommended financial assistance for organisations running equal remuneration cases.

Worth Valuing: A Report of the Pay Equity Inquiry, March 2001.

For further information

Contact:	Peter Lewis
Union:	Labor Council of NSW
WWW:	http://workers.labor.net.au/

LaborNET is proudly created, designed and programmed
by Social Change Online for the Labor Council of NSW
[Credits] [Site Matters]