The NSW Pay Equity Inquiry: A New Approach For the New Century

Abstract

This article sets out the main findings of the 1998 NSW Pay Equity Inquiry. The Inquiry found undervaluation of women s work in case studies of hairdressers, librarians, childcare workers, clothing workers and seafood processors. The Inquiry analysed the dynamics of how gender bias in industrial relations institutions and processes has affected valuing and remunerating women's work. These findings apply to all techniques for valuing work (including job evaluation, skills and competency assessments, qualifications-based classifications, and work value assessments as carried out by industrial tribunals) and operate under any form of employment contract and industrial regulation (including awards, agreements and overaward payments). The Inquiry provided a unique and valuable examination of the industrial history of assessment of value of work and setting remuneration, illuminated by insights from the now-substantial work on these issues from equal employment opportunity and discrimination and human rights perspectives. The Inquiry recommends new legislation and equal remuneration principles to give effect to a new approach to equal remuneration that does not rely on comparisons of men's and women s work, nor on a requirement to establish that differences in remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value are caused by sex discrimination.