A delegation of 21 BPW Australia members attended the 28^th BPW International Congress in Jeju, South Korea, in May. A new International Executive was elected, including new International President Dr Yasmin Darwich of Mexico.  BPW Australia was instrumental in the successful adoption of a number of resolutions that will guide the global agenda for the organisation over the next three years. For photographs and more detail, read National President Dr June Kane’s report here…

Read Report from BPW International Congress 2014

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2014 at 11:14 am and is filed under Front Page, Latest News. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. 

The recently released Australian Human Rights Commission report, Supporting Working Parents: Pregnancy and Return to Work National Review, revealed some disturbing news for women having children, and who wish to remain in, or return to the workforce after having a child.

The review found that one in two women in Australia reported experiencing discrimination in the workplace during their pregnancy, parental leave or on return to work.

The levels of discrimination experienced by women requesting, or taking Paid Parental Leave (PPL), and their return to work following leave, are quite disturbing. And it is not only women, but their partners as well, who appear to have suffered disadvantage in those circumstances.

Commonly reported types of discrimination experienced included reductions in salary, missing out on training, personal development and promotional opportunities.

The survey was conducted from a pool of 2,000 Centrelink-registered mothers, and recorded their perceived levels of discrimination following the introduction of PPL in January 2011. The sample size is significantly large enough to give this dataset statistical weight. The sample size of fathers and partners was 1200, again from those registered at Centrelink as receiving two weeks’ pay.

As a result of this discrimination, 84% of those mothers who perceived discrimination reported some significant negative impact related to mental health, physical health, career and job opportunities, financial stability or to their families. This represents approximately 30% of all mothers surveyed.

The mental health of mothers of young children is a deeply concerning matter, and will certainly have ramifications that may affect other young women considering motherhood. That employers are not making suitable adjustments in the workplace is of course a matter of concern for BPW Australia.

Interestingly, more than a quarter (27%) of the father and partner respondents reported experiencing discrimination during parental leave.

The government may need to meet this challenge with greater education of employers in respect of PPL. Unconscious, or conscious bias is threatening the well-being of not only women having children, but the children themselves. The increase in women’s workforce participation is critical to increasing the GDP of Australia, and any obstacles to this must be taken seriously as an issue of national importance.

Andrea Cross
Director of Policy
BPW Australia

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2014 at 2:28 pm and is filed under Front Page, Latest News. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.               

Supporting the view of BPW Australia, the Consult Australia Champions of Change have written to the Prime Minister to express their support for a robust workplace gender equality reporting framework. The group, comprised of 13 CEOs from the built environment consulting sector, are taking collective action to address equality in their workplaces and stimulate wider industry support for gender reporting. “All reporting regimes include an element of administrative burden but, as business leaders, we understand the primacy of data and the merits in making the effort to collect it,” said Greg Steele, Managing Director Australasia, Hyder Consulting and chair of the group.

Read Media Release

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2014 at 10:39 am and is filed under Front Page, Latest News. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

On 8 March every year, women across the globe mark International Women’s Day (IWD), a day of celebration and aspiration.

But did you know that IWD was originally called “International Working Women’s Day”?  Since it was first observed in 1908, IWD has been an important day for organisations like BPW Australia which focus on the rights of women in the world of work (within the broader context of women’s rights in general).

The history of IWD is interesting also because it began as a political event in the Socialist states of Eastern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet bloc. It was only when the day was added to the UN calendar that IWD became the human rights day that we know today.

Since it began, IWD has celebrated women’s achievements but also allowed women to pause and think about what still remains to be achieved.

In Australia, the focus is primarily on celebration:  this year we hail the achievements of our first female Governor-General, the Hon Quentin Bryce AC CVO, BPW Australia’s patron, whose term ends on 28 March.  Quentin Bryce is a role model for all women in Australia, young and old. She has served our nation with dignity, compassion and commitment, and has shown courage in speaking out for gay marriage and an Australian republic when she could so easily have hidden behind the traditions of her office.  Her hopes that Australia might become a nation where “people are free to love and marry whom they choose… and where perhaps…one day, one young girl or boy may even grow up to be our nation’s first head of state” were not a political statement, but an endorsement of the rights of all people.

Australia has now had a female Governor-General and a female Prime Minister, but such achievement has been shown to be fragile. By the end of this month, we shall again live in a country that has a man (a worthy man) in the Governor-General’s role, a man leading our Government and only one woman in the Cabinet. Clearly our work to achieve full equality of opportunity and representation is not over.

It should be of concern to all Australian women that, in the latest Global Gender Gap Report, Australia has slipped 10 places, with women in countries including South Africa, Cuba, Burundi, the Philippines, Latvia and Lesotho all enjoying greater equality with men than we do in relation to key indicators of equality: health, education, economics and politics. While Australia rates in equal first place in education, it comes in at 69th for health and survival and only 43rd for political empowerment.

Australian women still experience underlying forms of discrimination in the workplace and subtle, unconscious bias. The challenge for our society today is to continue to break down these barriers to change. The National President of Business and Professional Women (BPW) Australia, Dr June Kane AM, says “These are testing times for all of us who care about women’s status and rights both at work and in the community. Despite so many years of work, often robust legislation and the continuing determination and commitment of women across Australia, working women still do not receive the same pay as men for equivalent work; women retire with less superannuation; and we are under-represented not only on boards but on decision-making bodies at all levels. ”

This is why IWD is also a day of aspiration – a day when we recommit to our aspirations to achieve a world where all women enjoy all of their rights.

We do this at home through advocacy and lobbying, national campaigns, community projects and by enhancing our own personal and professional capacities for the benefit of our families, communities and nation.  And we do it on an international level through our affiliation with BPW International, a global network of women whose aspirations match our own.

As IWD is marked this year, BPW International delegates – including BPW Australia members – will be preparing for the 58^th meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the UN in New York. There, major themes are discussed each year, to ensure that international commitments made at conferences like the Beijing Conference on Women are followed through, and that governments are fulfilling their promises made in ratifying instruments such as the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

BPW International delegations and our permanent representatives to the UN in New York, Geneva and Vienna work tirelessly on these issues, ensuring that BPW’s voice is heard and that we are able to influence international agendas and actions for the benefit of women worldwide.

BPW Australia’s affiliation to BPW International also means that we can influence the international women’s agenda through such processes as the BPW International Congress, which in May this year will be held in Jeju, South Korea.  Resolutions that we have put forward will be voted on by BPW members from across the globe, as we vote on their resolutions, and together we shall set the agenda for our international work for the next three years.

These international processes are directly linked to the collegiate meetings BPW Clubs hold every month across Australia.  Our Clubs are the heart of our organisation and members generate the energy that keeps us alive and able to do the work we do – at local, national and international levels.

As International Women’s Day comes around again this year, every member of BPW Australia should be proud of our achievements on behalf of women here and overseas, and recommit to our aspiration that true equality and enjoyment of rights become a reality for all women.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2014 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Front Page, Latest News. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.               

BPW Australia is dismayed by news this week that the government is considering changing the reporting around the Workplace Gender Equity Indicators only recently introduced. If these proposals are implemented, the concern of our members — employers and employees– is that systemic discrimination will continue to prevent gender equity in the workplace.

For the first time ever data is being collected from companies with more than 100 employees, who report on information such as gender composition of the workforce and governing bodies, remuneration, positions held, hours worked, flexible work arrangements for carers, and consultation on gender equality. From this, companies themselves are encouraged to identify unconscious bias in selection and promotion practices that currently impede women’s workforce participation and career advancement.

To have any meaningful impact on understanding the continued disparity in wages and leadership positions for women in this country, and given the lack of accurate basic information collected in the past, we ask the government to ensure that reporting continues unchanged.

BPW Australia recognises the economic cost to companies to comply with the reporting standards, but remains concerned that any attempt to decrease the number of companies reporting would weaken the restructuring of outdated work practices.

We ask the government to respect the fact that the current reporting arrangements were widely discussed with the corporate sector and women’s and other community organisations, and reflect a broad consensus on the way forward in ensuring gender equity in the workplace.

BPW Australia has been an advocate for gender pay equity for more than 60 years and will continue to support change that can improve women’s full participation in all aspects of the economy, returning benefits to individuals and businesses alike.

For further information contact:
Director of Policy: Andrea Cross
dirpolicy@bpw.com.au

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2014 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Front Page, Latest News. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.               

New figures released 20 February by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that, on average, full-time working women’s earnings are 17.1% less per week than full-time working men’s earnings (a difference that equates to $262.50 per week). This gap in male and female earnings has decreased slightly since the last set of ABS figures were released in August 2013, when the gap was 17.5%. Women’s earnings have increased at a slightly higher rate than men’s over the past 12 months: 3.5% compared to 3%. Some may consider this to be “progress” –that is a matter of opinion.  BPW Australia’s opinion is that we shall have made progress when there is NO pay gap. At the fifth national conference in 1952, BPW Australia launched a “Rate for the job” campaign in support of ratification of the International Labour Organization’s Equal Remuneration Convention (1951). It is inconceivable that, 62 years later, the campaign slogan “Pay the job, not the sex” is still absolutely valid.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 20th, 2014 at 11:57 am and is filed under Latest News. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.