WorkChoices and pay equity

The combination of the flow-on effect of the 1972 federal wage fixing principle to State tribunals and State government's passing legislation to implement the International Labour Organization's (ILO) 1951 Convention No. 100 Concerning Equal Remuneration for Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value meant that in theory at least the concept of equal pay for work of equal value applied throughout Australia when award wage rates were decided by industrial tribunals. Nevertheless, the difficulty of having the principle apply in practice was highlighted in 1986 when the federal tribunal refused to adopt a 'comparable worth' methodology when applying the 1972 wage fixing principle to access the appropriate award rate of pay for feminised occupations and industries. Despite the advances made in the 1970s, the inertia of the gender earnings gap in Australia can be seen by the proportion of female full-time 'ordinary time earnings', that is earnings that exclude overtime, relative to male earnings: in the period between 1981 and 2003 female earnings in Australia hovered at about 80 to 85 per cent of male earnings. This stagnation in gender pay equity motivated the Keating government in 1993 to amend the federal Industrial Relations Act 1988, adding equal remuneration provisions primarily based on ILO Convention No. 100.