28 May 2004

Drs Trish Todd and Joan Eveline
Senior lecturers
School of Business, M261
University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway
CRAWLEY WA 6009
ttodd@ecel.uwa.edu.au.nospam (please remove '.nospam' from address)

Dear Dr Todd and Dr Eveline

I refer to the Review of the Gender Pay Gap in Western Australia and the call for submissions by 31 May 2004. I am attaching the Australian Library and Information Association's comments and proposals for your attention. If any further information is required I will be pleased to provide it.

Yours sincerely

Phil Teece
Adviser, industrial relations and employment, ALIA National Office

Submission by the Australian Library and Information Association

Review of the Gender Pay Gap in Western Australia

May 2004

The Australian Library and Information Association [ALIA] is the professional organisation for the Australian library and information services sector. It seeks to empower the profession in the development, promotion and delivery of quality library and information services to the nation through leadership, advocacy and mutual support. ALIA has almost five thousand individual members and nearly nine hundred institutional or corporate members. Membership is located in a wide range of industry and cultural sectors in all states and territories.

ALIA was heavily-involved in the New South Wales Pay Equity Inquiry and worked closely with the Office of the Director for Equal Opportunity in Public Employment [ODEOPE] and the Premier's Department in development of the Crown case. The Association was, of course, delighted by the outcome of the Inquiry and the resultant Pay Equity Test Case for librarians, library technicians and archivists conducted by a Full Bench of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission which produced substantial improvements in both pay and professional recognition.

In making submissions to the subsequent Queensland and Tasmanian reviews, ALIA strongly-recommended incorporation of the NSW approach. We make the same submission in respect of Western Australia's review.

ALIA believes that at least part of its membership in WA suffers pay disadvantage, primarily resulting from the feminised nature of the profession. State government librarians are clearly held back at lower levels in professional officer classification structures in the dominant area of employment. As a result, overall remuneration standards [Attachment A] are entirely inappropriate for a highly-skilled professional category engaged in work that has been subject to huge change in recent years.

When comparisons are made with contemporary remuneration standards set by the NSWIRC Full Bench assessment of library professionals' current work value [Attachment B], wage levels in WA employment can be seen as lamentable. In this connection, it is important to recognise that the major work value shifts identified by both the NSW Pay Equity Inquiry and the Full Bench Test Case are broad and have strong, though not necessarily identical, effects for ALL library professionals in Australia. In other words, it cannot be credibly-argued that the NSW work value adjustments are products of solely NSW factors.

Analysis of current WA government employed librarians reveals that of 469 employees, just 11 [or 2.3 per cent] earn more than $60000 per annum. Only 60 [12.8 per cent] earn more than $50000. Most disturbingly, 60 per cent of WA government librarians earn less than $39999. In NSW, the lowest possible point for a new graduate librarian with no experience is $39594. There are 21 salary points for librarians attracting salaries from $40000 to $91554 per annum in NSW. Similar starting salaries for new graduate librarians prevail across the Australian university sector under federal awards.

Data on the full-time/part-time break up of these employees in WA is not available to ALIA but it seems clear that the majority are working full-time. This suggests that a high proportion of WA government sector librarians are being valued at, or in many cases below, a level that is appropriate only for beginners in the profession. It is axiomatic that this represents serious pay inequity for the employees concerned.

While firm statistical detail is difficult to obtain, anecdotal evidence suggests the same problem of undervaluation is apparent in local government across Western Australia.

Clearly, then, very many highly-experienced librarians in WA are being grossly undervalued and paid no more than inexperienced new graduates receive elsewhere. It is incomprehensible that a similar situation would be allowed to apply to any male-dominated professional occupation covered by the same classification structures in WA. ALIA cannot access data on other professional categories to prove this but we believe the comparisons should be made and remedial action taken. Our recommendations, below, go to the question of how to achieve that.

ALIA believes that prospects for improved fairness can be greatly enhanced if Western Australia follows the NSW strategy of identifying specific occupational groups for special attention. This can be especially effective if Government leads that approach by requiring, for example, the Department of Consumer and Employment Protection, possibly in conjunction with the Equal Opportunity Commission, to conduct formal review of the contemporary work value of its library professionals. Similar review of local government library professionals' employment could be required of the state's Local Government Association.

Against this background, ALIA asks the WA Gender Gap Review to recommend that Government, with particular, but not exclusive, attention to its own public employment areas:

1. take steps to investigate:
   
   
   • the extent to which members of feminised professional and para-professional groups [including librarians and library technicians] are concentrated at lower levels of integrated classification structures
     
     
   • whether the work of these groups [including librarians and library technicians] is classified at lower levels in such structures than that of other professionals and para professionals in other non-feminised categories
     
     
   • what methods, if any, are used by organisations - especially state and local government agencies - to define the work value of library professionals and para-professionals, bearing in mind the NSW Pay Equity and NSWIRC finding that they continue to suffer serious pay disadvantage, despite having experienced work value increases of 'the highest order'.
     
     
   • whether there is a need in specific sectors - notably state and local government employment - for revised gender-neutral processes of job evaluation to be introduced so that judgements about the work value of library professionals [and others] are seen to be consistent with those made about non-feminised categories
     
     
   • whether there has been any state-wide attempt to review the work value of WA library workers in light of major changes in information storage, retrieval and management in recent years, or whether - as established in the NSW Inquiry - increasing pay disadvantage is resulting from failure to conduct proper work value analysis in recent years
     
     
   • the extent of any obvious differences in remuneration between female library professionals employed in remote and regional Western Australia and professionals undertaking similar work in metropolitan Perth, especially as regards state and local government employment
     
     
   • whether there are unreasonable or unexplained differences between women and men engaged in similar level professional duties in respect of total remuneration policies, and, in particular whether non-cash benefits are conferred on an equal basis
     
     
   • whether library and other feminised professionals, are afforded reasonable access to professional training and development opportunities compared to non-feminised categories,
     
     
2. commission specific analysis of the contemporary work value of library professionals in state and local government employment, with particular attention to the findings of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission after its review of counterpart professionals in that state,
   
   and
   
   
3. take action to eliminate all inequities identified.

Inquiries and further information: Phil Teece, adviser, industrial relations and employment, ph 02 62158228, fax 02 6282 2249, phil.teece@alia.org.au.nospam (please remove '.nospam' from address)

Attachment A

1. Librarians employed in WA public sector agencies at 30 June 2003 by salary group

2. Librarians employed in WA public sector agencies at 30 June 2003 by salary group

Attachment B

Salary levels - librarians in New South Wales public sector agencies

[NSW Crown Employees Librarians, Library Technicians and Archivists Award 2002] from 1 July 2003