Pay Equity: An Industrial Relations Anomaly?

Abstract

The Professional Officers' Association, which operates in the Commonwealth employment sector, has been in the forefront of the contemporary movement to achieve pay equity for women employed in female intensive professions. The Association's experiences have led it to conclttde that pay equity is difficult for parties to the industrial relations system to negotiate in the context of the established industrial relations model, which places strong reliance on the process of negotiation and compromise. This is further complicated by the conflicting position of the Commonwealth government at the political level, with a policy that supports pay equity, and as an employer who historically has resisted and impeded implementation of pay equity, and continues to do sa This paper examines the positions adopted by the Commonwealth government as an employer, by the Indtrstriat Relations Commission as guardian of the public interest, including the national economy, and by unions, primarily in the context of the Association's experiences in pursuing claims for pay equity for female professions. The paper describes the means by which pay equity claims are succeeding with the assistance of the Commission, using the Association's dental therapist cases as a case sttrdy, and draws on the experience of other contemporary pay equity cases in addition to those run by the Professional Officers' Association in order to emphasize tfre dysfunctional aspects of the process imposed by the Indrsstrial Relations Commission as a means of dealing with claims for pay equity.