It would appear that in the real word of unequal wages based on gender in a country where women on average earn around 82-84 cents for every dollar earned by men (often when doing identical work) and its first female prime minister is ambivalent on the issue, it literally pays for women to collectively bargain in the workplace.
This week the Federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations released its report AGREEMENT MAKING IN AUSTRALIA UNDER THE WORKPLACE RELATIONS ACT: 2007 TO 2009 which stated in part:
A total of 24 156 collective agreements were approved under the WR Act between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2009. This was a 14.7 per cent increase from the 21 057 collective agreements approved in the previous three year reporting period.
Twenty-nine per cent of employees had their pay set by a federally registered collective agreement during the reporting period. This was a slight increase from the 28.5 per cent of employees who had their pay set by a collective agreement during the previous reporting period.
Employees whose pay was set by a collective agreement earned, on average, more than those whose pay was set by an individual agreement.
The average hourly ordinary time earnings of non-managerial employees on federally registered collective agreements was $29.00 in August 2008, compared with $28.60 for employees whose pay was set by a federally registered individual agreement.
For female employees, the difference was slightly larger, with $27.10 under collective agreements compared with $26.00 under individual agreements.
At the same time the department also released TRENDS IN FEDERAL ENTERPRISE BARGAINING JUNE QUARTER, 2010.
Snapshot of GetUp! wage calculator
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