Thursday, November 02, 2017

Good riddance

When aged care workers won a court case and a huge legal settlement for equal pay, the then-National government responded by introducing legislation to stop anyone from doing that ever again. Now, the new government has scrapped that shit:
The government is throwing out pay equity legislation introduced by National, saying it makes it harder for people to make a claim for fair wages.

Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter said the legislation was deliberately designed to put barriers in the way of women who wanted to make a pay equity claim, and would be replaced.

[...]

The government will start work on new legislation to adhere to principles agreed by the Joint Working Group on Pay Equity - a group made up of business, union and government representatives.

Ms Genter is confident improving the legislation will be straightforward.

"We already have the agreed principles from the joint working group and I don't think it will be too difficult to go back, to take those barriers out of the bill, replace them with something that truly reflects those agreed principles, and is going to make it easier for women to have a process and a pathway to equal pay."


Good. National's bill responded to inequality by entrenching it (for the profit of its sexist business cronies, of course). Now they're gone, hopefully we'll see some real progress towards closing the gender pay gap and ensuring that there is equal pay for work of equal value.