Today the ACTU has released “Morrison Missing – A Record of his Failure for Working Women” – a major report outlining how the Morrison Government has failed to support working women.
The report shows that under the Morrison Government, women in the workplace:
- Earn on average $483.30 less per week than a man and retire with about half the amount of super as a man.
- Are more likely to be in low wage and insecure work, and therefore more likely to have lost work or hours during the pandemic.
- Have a 2 in 3 chance of experiencing sexual harassment in a current or former workplace.
- No guaranteed right to paid family and domestic violence leave, despite a spike in family and domestic violence during the pandemic.
- Rely on the second worst paid parental leave scheme in the developed world, according to the OECD.
- Pay for some of the most expensive early childhood education and care in the world – with early childhood educators being extremely low paid.
As the report outlines, on each issue, Scott Morrison has either done nothing, shirked responsibility, or blocked progress.
Working women’s experience of the Prime Minister’s inaction is clear in a new nation-wide ACTU survey of 3000 respondents, published to coincide with the report’s release. The survey shows that while the Morrison Government has left the majority of Australians concerned about their job, wages and the economy, women have been left worse off:
- 77% of women are say the cost of living has gotten worse, compared to 67% of men.
- 55% of women say their job security has gotten worse compared to 45% of men, and
- 56% of women believe the economy has gotten worse compared to 50% of men.
Women are still shouldering the majority of caring responsibilities and are more likely than men to be in part-time, casual and other forms of insecure work. 61 per cent of workers who rely on Awards or minimum wages are women and we continue to see systemic underpayment of entire feminised industries.
The report calls for several long-overdue changes to make workplaces and society safer for women, close the gender pay gap and ensure all working women have a secure retirement including:
- Introducing stronger equal pay laws in the Fair Work Act
- Pay superannuation on parental leave
