EQUAL PAY PLAN CRITICISED

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32020, 21 June 1969, Page 13

EQUAL PAY PLAN CRITICISED

(N.Z. Press Assn.— CopyriohD MELBOURNE, June 20.

Australia’s Federation of Women Voters today joined union leaders and employers in criticism of the country’s new equalpay award for women.

The award, which, ovdr a three-year period, will raise women’s wage rates to male levels for equal work, was granted yesterday by the Federal Arbitration Commission after one of the most controversial cases in the nation’s judicial history. The move, involving million workers, will add an estimated ssoom a year to the country’s wage bill. The decision will affect at first only women employed under Commonwealth awards. Women employed under State

awards will have to await decisions by the State Industrial Courts. The advocate for the Australian Federation of Women Voters (Miss Eileen Powell) said today that the commission’s judgment would be a bitter disappointment to most women workers. “The award won’t affect nurses, shop assistants, clerks, typists or women factory workers unless they are doing men’s work,” she said. The Australian Council of Trade Unions, which led the long court fight against employers, expressed disappointment in the three-year delay before the decision would come fully into effect. And it would be a long process before the unions could take full advantage of the decision, said the A.C.T.U. court advocate (Mr R. W. Hawke). Mr George Seelaf, the Victorian secretary of the Australian Meat Industry Employees’ Union which brought

rthe case to court, said that the court still had not answered the case presented to it by the unions. “Experience has shown in other states that under their legislation very few women were successful in getting the benefits of the legislation,” he said.

The Associated Chambers of Manufacturers’ federal president (Mr J. C. Campbell), said that the decision might work against women. “Many employers, faced with the choice of obtaining either male or female labour, might well select the male worker,” he said.

“It must be clearly understood that the judgment of the commission does not open the way for a flood of increases in fsmale wages.” The National Council of Women president (Mrs Ada Norris) said: “This is really justice. This is equal pay for equal work, to which nobody can really object."