Accepting mediocrity as progress : gender pay equity and enterprise bargaining

Debates concerning the gender equity claims of enterprise bargaining have taken a particular form. Proponents of decentralised wage-fixing have argued that enterprise bargaining has not disadvantaged women. This claim is supported by reference to the relative stability in gender earnings ratios and the evenness in outcomes for men and women, particularly those in permanent full-time employment, arising from enterprise bargaining agreements. This narrow test of disadvantage obfuscates issues requiring key policy and industrial redress. It is a critique that excludes three key considerations: the equity position of women who remain outside the enterprise bargaining stream; growing income dispersion in Australia, and the prevalence of non-standard employment. Similarly the failure of enterprise bargaining to advance the pay equity position of women significantly beyond the impact of the 1969 and 1972 equal pay decisions is under-explored. Scrutiny of enterprise bargaining provides an opportunity to reaffirm gender (and class) as key analytical tools in enterprise bargaining research and highlights the limitations in the equity benchmarks that are used to appraise enterprise bargaining.