The Australian Library Journal

A century of pay inequity: is the end in sight?

Irene Bonella

Manuscript received August 2003

[This paper began life as part of the requirement for a Masters Degree at Charles Sturt University, Riverina. Subsequently revised, it was submitted for consideration in the Jean Arnot Memorial Fellowship award in 2003. The author, Irene Bonella, was judged joint winner of the Fellowship in May 2003. The other successful paper was also written on the subject of pay equity].

As female librarians entered the Australian workforce around the turn of the century their experience of wage disadvantage ran parallel to that of their sisters in other areas of employment. Of special interest in the case of librarians is that their occupation quickly became female-dominated (because they were recognised as cheap labour), and this led to further issues of disadvantage. For librarians, issues regarding professional qualification and promotion became as important as equal pay. Equal pay legislation, when it finally came, did little to address the overall disadvantage suffered by professional librarians. Equal pay did not in any way resemble pay equity. 'Pay equity encompasses all forms of remuneration. Women in Australia earn less than men in all categories of earnings ... all occupational groupings and the majority of benefits' (National Women's Consultative Council 1990 p1).

Real progress in pay equity came in the last years of the century for women in general, including librarians. In 1996 the NSW government established the Pay Equity Taskforce, under the auspices of the NSW Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations, to investigate pay equity issues affecting women in the state. Their 1997 report had a key recommendation that an inquiry into work value be conducted in the Industrial Relations Commission. The purpose of this, the first Pay Equity Inquiry in Australia, was to gather evidence and make recommendations concerning the under-valuation of women's work. Significant for the library profession was the selection of librarians at the State Library of New South Wales as one of the six occupations to be examined. Librarians were the only professional group to be selected for examination. The Inquiry found that women's work was undervalued in female-dominated industries and occupations; and that remedial action is required. Justice Glynn ruled that such remedial action should take place within the existing Industrial Relations system. She recommended that a new principle, the 'Equal Remuneration Principle' be included in the Industrial Relations Act 1996 (Pay Equity Inquiry, Volume 2 p174).

This recommendation became law on 30 June 2000. Unions are now able to seek variations to awards by establishing that rates in the award are undervalued on a gender basis. Now the framework is in place, the difficulty for librarians is to actually 'get the ball over the line'. There has been a history of union indifference to the profession. Librarians are a small group in the scheme of union power bases. For example, in local government, librarians are lumped together with other professions and sub-professions (largely male-dominated) and it will be difficult to persuade their union representatives to pursue the Equal Remuneration Principle in enterprise agreements. Such action would be seen as endangering 'relativities' with these other occupations.

A history of women's pay disadvantage

Legislative framework

The Pay Equity Inquiry (1998 Volume 3 p72-148) provides a brief history of the disadvantage. It began with the entrenchment of a male/female differential in 'The Harvester Case' (1907) 2 Commonwealth Arbitration Reports (CAR) 1. This case prescribed a basic wage for a man founded upon his status as 'breadwinner', with an obligation, or a potential obligation, to provide for a family. A later case 'The Fruitpickers' Case' (1912) 6 CAR 61 rejected the argument that the basic wage for men and women be the same. Apparently the obligation for a woman to provide for a family, with or without a breadwinner, was dismissed. In 1919 the female basic wage was set at fifty-four per cent of the male wage, where it remained until 1943 when it was increased to seventy-five per cent.

In 1969 the first equal pay case was brought in the Federal sphere, the result being the introduction of the principle of equal pay for equal work. There had been an earlier NSW-based equal pay legislation in the Female Rates (Amendment) Act 1958. This was the first Australian equal pay legislation which stated that workers regardless of gender were to be paid equally for performing work of the same or like nature and of equal value. The 1969 Federal Equal Pay decision granted equal pay to women who performed the same work, or like nature and of equal value, as men. However the Commission decided that equal pay should not apply where women, essentially or usually, carried out the work. Therein lies the rub; equality principles did not apply in female-dominated occupations and professions. This decision severely limited the spread of equal pay for many women. (NSW Pay Equity Taskforce: issues paper 1996). Librarians being a female-dominated profession were, and have continued to be, affected by this decision.

The Australian industrial relations system, since its inception, has been centralised at either federal or state level. At the Federal level formalised arrangements exist to regulate the terms and conditions of employment and wage fixing through a series of awards. State tribunals generally have followed the Federal lead in major test cases. The Australian industrial relations system for many years held as sacrosanct the maintenance of relativities between occupations. The quest for women's pay equity has been inconsistent with this ideal and has therefore often met with mixed success in the industrial relations system. Over the decades since the 1969 decision, several attempts were made to persuade the Commission to accept alternative views such as 'work value assessment' and 'comparable worth', but without success (Burgess et al. 1998 p19). These decisions have lead to entrenched structural bias within the wage fixing arrangements operating in Australia.

It was not until 1996 when the NSW government enacted the Industrial Relations Act 1996 (NSW) which had as a specific object the redressing of inequitable pay and employment arrangements, that some progress was made. Hansard reports the then NSW Attorney-General as stating 'Comparable pay principles have not been properly applied. The government wants... industrial tribunals to rectify those historical inequities'.

Librarians

Encel, Bullard and Cass (1972) provided a valuable history of librarians in New South Wales from the early days of the twentieth century until the time of their study. They write of several phenomena contributing to the peculiar position in which the profession finds itself. There is the issue of pay differentials. In the past, male to female within the profession and today male to female, outside a gender-segregated profession. A further issue which resulted in disadvantage was the feminisation of the profession and the requirement in place until 1966 (Geise 1994 p23) that librarians in the State Public Service were required to resign upon marriage, thus losing seniority and continuity of experience. Professionalism and promotional opportunities were vexed questions for many years. The authors conclude on a note of dissatisfaction with the performance of the professional association, then the Library Association of Australia.

Much of the recent writing on the subject of pay equity has centred on the librarians employed at the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) (Fruin 1997). Encel, Bullard and Cass also drew heavily on this institution because of its importance as the premier library in the state. Both these studies highlighted the poor status attached to female librarians at the State Library in the first half of last century. The early male principal librarians at the SLNSW were keen to utilise the supply of young, cheap, well educated, female labour. By the 1930s the institution was largely staffed by women. 'Their main duties were originally as cataloguers and classifiers, tasks regarded as largely mechanical but important enough to warrant the employment of 'sober, steadfast and demure graduates'. Any non-graduate women employed were relegated to circulation duties, strictly non-professional tasks. Women were seen as a necessary evil in the library, acceptable only because they were affordable.

It was their affordability that is at the crux of the disadvantage that they, and their successors, suffered. Until 1969 female librarians could receive only seventy-five per cent of the wage paid to men in the same positions. Female librarians in relatively senior positions were often paid less than their male subordinates. Jean Arnott, a famous activist librarian, recalled being paid less at one time than the male cleaner. She was regularly paid less than male subordinates. In many cases the males employed at the SLNSW were not graduates, often using their employment there as a means of gaining qualification in order to move up in the State Public Service. However the effect of having non-qualified males subordinate to female professionals had a 'double whammy' effect for the women. Because they were unqualified the males were relatively lowly paid in the State Public Service hierarchy. Since their female superiors could only receive at best seventy-five per cent of the male wage, there began the entrenched disadvantage. 'When male and female rates were subsequently 'equalised', they were set at the existing male rate and thereby failed to reflect the higher qualifications of the women' (Hunter 2000, p19). Librarianship was forever relegated to the lower paid professional stratum. 'Librarians have been, and continue to be located at the lower end of salary rates for professionals engaged in the public sector, particularly compared with psychologists and teachers' (Pay Equity Inquiry 1998 Volume 1 p464), both latter professions have a high incidence of feminisation. When librarians are compared with male dominated professions the disadvantage is even greater.

As stated earlier it was a requirement that women in the State Public Service resign upon marriage. This marriage bar also operated in the Commonwealth Public Service and within Local Government municipalities and instrumentalities. Simon (1997 p275) relates that the marriage bar was still in place in Rockhampton as late as 1977. This bar had a deleterious effect on the professional careers of many women. Forced to 'retire' upon marriage these skilled professionals were lost to librarianship for many years and often found it difficult to return after their enforced career break. Encel, Bullard and Cass (1972) report that while 'eighty-six per cent of librarians are women; half the women are under 25; four fifths are single; ergo one third of librarians are young unmarried women. The sharp decline of older women is greater than accounted for by death, illness and transfer'. The marriage bar is evidently the most important factor in this demographic. Removal of the marriage bar resulted in a reversal of this trend as evidenced by ALIA, (Profile of Australian library workers 1998), which shows that seventy-two per cent of library workers are aged forty or older. This is remarkable when compared to the overall demographic of Australian workers at forty per cent.

Promotional opportunities for women in libraries have been as elusive as pay equity. Again at the SLNSW, Encel Bullard and Cass (1972 p28) reported that although 'a large proportion of women employees have been graduates, much higher than the proportion among their male colleagues', nevertheless it is the men who had consistently been promoted to senior positions, evidently as a matter of policy. Although the profession has for a long time emphasised graduate qualifications as a means of raising the status of librarianship, sex appears to be a more important variable than education; all degrees may be of equal value, but male graduates are more equal than female. As a result librarianship has lost ground to other occupations where this double standard is less evident.

Thirty years later there has been quite a change in this situation. Anti-discrimination legislation and promotion on merit systems saw many women occupying many of the country's top jobs in librarianship. The SLNSW had its first female CEO, and (in 1994) all but one of the state librarians were female (Geise, 1994 p23). There was an appearance of reverse discrimination in operation. Professor Barry McIntyre is reported to have stated that 'in appointments during the eighties to senior positions the structural imbalance has been redressed. A number of women have been appointed state librarians and university librarians as well'. He observes however, that 'making the chief librarian women [sic] is organisationally easier than making structural changes within the organisation' (Geise, 1994 p23). Obviously this is true, since even after the twelve-year stewardship of two female state librarians, the librarians at the SLNSW were found to be undervalued and under remunerated by the NSW Pay Equity Inquiry. The Inquiry further reported it to be 'noteworthy that, notwithstanding the long history of female domination at the State Library, and allowing for the statistically small number of the most senior positions, the highest proportion of male employees is to be found in the two highest classifications'. Women occupying jobs at the top does not translate into equity for all.

Jane Simon (1997) drew upon oral histories and interviews with twenty retired librarians to detail the status of women in libraries between the 1950s and 1980s.These women related the difficulties associated with seeking promotion. 'Male librarians were recruited for the higher managerial posts, such as chief (municipal) librarian ... women were placed in charge of departments such as cataloguing, but were not offered the positions of power. Women represented a threat to an organisational culture which valued masculine leadership qualities'.

Structural bias

The foregoing paragraphs show a gradual building of entrenched structural bias into the working life of women in general and librarians in particular. Structural bias can best be described as subtle attitudinal and cultural decisions, resulting in disadvantage being entrenched in economic and industrial systems. 'Gender bias is an insidious force and many factors contribute to its perpetuation in the Australian workforce. Industrial awards and agreements have traditionally reflected the view that positions occupied by women have a lower work value' (McLelland 1991 p5). He continues:

...in the case of librarians, an occupation where women hold most of the positions, gender bias is extreme. In local government the librarian occupation is paid some twenty per cent less for equivalent work value, than the male dominated occupational groups such as engineers, town planners and health and building surveyors.

Some seven years later these statements were validated by the findings of the NSW Pay Equity Inquiry, at which McLelland gave evidence.

The current situation

The NSW Pay Equity Inquiry

The landmark New South Wales Pay Equity Inquiry began in January 1998. Expert witnesses included academics, union officials, employer groups, employees, consultants, anti-discrimination, pay equity specialists and women's lobby groups. The Inquiry was a mammoth task, which investigated the findings of the NSW Pay Equity Taskforce in the areas of inequitable pay and working conditions for women and the undervaluation of women's skills.

The major findings of the Inquiry were that the under-valuation of women's work was confirmed: the Inquiry found undervaluation in the case studies of female-dominated occupations including librarians, child care workers, hairdressers and beauty therapists. The case studies were detailed analyses of the history of disadvantage in each occupation. Ms D Fruin of the Office of the Director of Equal Opportunity in Public Employment (ODEOPE) put the librarian's case. The Australian Library and Information Association played an active part in the development of the case (Teece 1999 p24). A complex combination of factors was found to contribute to undervaluation; these included occupational segregation, non-alignment of qualifications, un-willingness to assess skills, knowledge and responsibilities in women's work, and finally the evidence of gendered assumptions in work value assessments. All these factors combined to undervalue women's work even in the 1990s industrial field of wage fixing.

Finally the Report concluded that 'remedies designed to remove undervaluation of work in female-dominated industries and occupations should be established within the framework of the existing industrial relations system in NSW. The remedies should be derived from industrial legislation, (and) the principles of equal remuneration developed by the Commission' (Pay Equity Inquiry, Volume 2 p149).

So after a century, there was finally an official recognition of facts that women and librarians have known for decades. Female-dominated occupations are under-valued and consequently underpaid.

Comparison with male-dominated professions

In the 1998 case study compiled by Ms D Fruin (ODEOPE) for the Pay Equity Inquiry, clear evidence is given that equally evaluated male and female-dominated occupations will bring differing rates of pay. The report demonstrated that:

...the disparity between work value, career opportunities and award classifications and rates of pay for librarians relative to geoscientists is likely to reflect long standing under-valuation of librarian work associated with the female-dominated nature of the work (Fruin 1998 p7)

The two professions were studied as a pilot job evaluation carried out in 1991 by ODEOPE. This highlighted a number of anomalies in point scores and pay rates between these two occupations, both of which were gender dominated. The case study carried the onus of the evidence for the librarian's case in the Pay Equity Inquiry. Whilst Justice Glynn did not always agree with the points made in the case study, she found that the work of librarians is seriously undervalued, despite their having experienced 'work value changes of the highest order' in the past decades (Pay Equity Inquiry, Volume 1 p490).

The study was carried out using two commercially available job evaluation packages by The Hay Group (Hay) and Organisational Consulting Resources (OCR). Twenty jobs in each profession were chosen for evaluation. Each profession has the same entry-level tertiary qualification, a bachelor's degree, although a librarian often needs to have a post-graduate qualification to gain professional standing. Additionally 'geo-scientists are less likely to be required to compete through merit-based selection for career progression' (Fruin 1998 p7).

In a labour market comparison Ms Fruin states that 'when comparing public sector librarians and geoscientists the latter were paid between eighty-seven and 114 per cent of the median salary for the general market while the librarians were paid between seventy-three and ninety-six per cent of the median, for jobs of the same evaluation points'. Basically, librarians are paid below the median salaries of the general market for jobs of the same Hay evaluation points. A poor showing for the female-dominated profession of librarian.

Effect of technology on skill levels

There have been dramatic changes in the nature of librarianship in the past two decades. This has been directly related to the widespread use of technology in all aspects of the profession. Every task is carried out through technological advances. From the on-line ordering of an item, downloading of a record from Kinetica or OCLC, the integrated circulation system, OPAC and web searching, the whole business is technology based. All library schools have compulsory IT subjects in their curricula. Technological complexity was seen not only as a means of increasing productivity and access, but as a way to guarantee professional status for librarianship, coming as it did hard on the heels of the push for professional recognition (Simon 1997 p283). The focus on technology was given in evidence at the Pay Equity Inquiry to prove the increase in work value by librarians. Unfortunately, this up-skilling of librarians did not result in higher remuneration.

For some time it was thought that this emphasis on technology would attract more men into the profession and that this would have two effects. First that the female domination would diminish and secondly that equalisation could result in improved remuneration for all librarians. In fact, neither has occurred. Many of the men in libraries have moved into the information technology area, but the overall numbers have not increased appreciably. Certainly there is no evidence of improved remuneration.

There is another school of thought advanced by Strober and Arnold (1987 p117) that 'holding constant educational level, experience job location and non-pecuniary job characteristics, the higher the percentage of women in an occupation, the lower the wage rate for both men and women in that occupation'. This argument holds true in the Australian experience, in the lower library ranks males and females are equally disadvantaged in pay rates. It is, as previously mentioned, that men become more successful financially through occupying a disproportionate number of senior positions. Strober and Arnold also propose that as women enter a profession, men leave, and that occupational segregation is less a matter of choice for women, than a reflection of men not wanting to be seen doing 'women's work'. Claire Burton (1991a p6) refers to this phenomenon by the wonderful term 'fear of contagious effeminacy'.

Job evaluation issues

The Pay Equity Taskforce (1996 p47) defined job evaluation as a 'formal procedure which, through analysing the content of jobs, seeks to rank those jobs hierarchically in terms of their value, for the purpose of establishing wage rates'. This sounds like a fairly sensible process, a structured means by which to arrive at equitable pay rates, however these systems must remain totally objective to function effectively and rarely does this occur. Biases creep in, and gender bias in particular is difficult to exclude. So the very systems which were supposed to bring fairness and equity to the process have themselves become tainted. Claire Burton (a former director of ODEOPE) in her book Women's worth: pay equity and job evaluation in Australia (1987) gives many reasons for this and all are complex and inter-related:

• Job evaluation processes are too subjective (p3).
• The influence of the senior people on the evaluation team on the final ranking of the job (p4).
• The effect of the person doing the rating's familiarity (or lack of) with the job being evaluated (p4)
• The whole issue of position descriptions: their consistency, length and scope (p45)
• The use of language in position descriptions as a means of differentiating male and female jobs (p58)
• The possibility of bias at every stage of the process, but especially in the choice of factors and weightings (p86)
• Wage discrimination in gender-segregated occupations (p30)
• Women's occupational attributes seen as requiring less ability and effort than those for men's jobs (p31)
• Women undervaluing their own work relative to that of others (p108)
• Women undervaluing the work of other women (p110)

Throughout the work Burton uses librarians as an example of undervalued women workers. It is perhaps worthy of mention that Ms Burton was widely quoted in the findings of the Pay Equity Taskforce and gave evidence at the NSW Pay Equity Inquiry shortly before her death in 1998. Her life-long work in job evaluation and pay equity is honoured by an annual Memorial Lecture.

Union indifference

The ALIA Profile of Australian library workers (1998) reports that library workers are highly unionised. Fifty-seven per cent of library workers are member of a trade union; this compares with only thirty-one per cent of the general workforce. This is probably not surprising, in that the bulk of library workers are employed in the public sector where unionism is very high. The argument that librarians have poor remuneration and benefits would not appear to be due to low levels of union membership. It could be that their unions are representing them poorly, or that the librarians are minnows in the large, amalgamated, union pond. Some of the responsibility for this may rest with library workers, in that they are insufficiently involved in union affairs.

Encel Bullard and Cass (1972 p85) wrote of correspondingly high union membership three decades ago. It is obvious that this high level of unionism has done little or nothing to improve the lot of librarians. Their survey elicited the fact that more librarians favoured a union specifically for librarians, rather than being part of an existing union. Given the progress made, they could hardly have fared any worse.

Jane Simon (1997 p281) writes of the dilemma facing professional librarians over past years, when dealing with grievances. 'The majority of librarians in Australia perceived the expression of personal grievances as unprofessional, and abstained from becoming actively involved in union issues'. They were brought up on a diet of professionalism and self-sacrifice. It was this image of professionalism, with the emphasis on the improvement of libraries rather than individual status, which has led to the image of women librarians as passive sufferers of, rather than resisters against, discrimination' (Simon 1997 p270). Librarians have lacked the drive to push their unions into supporting them. 'The award for librarians has been historically lower than for other (local government) functions because as a group they lacked the industrial muscle to achieve pay justice. In such instances the role of unions in the development and maintenance of pay inequity has been considerable' (McLelland 1991 p7).

Gillian Currie (1992 p80) writes of what can be achieved if librarians mobilise their forces. Her successful campaign as federal president of the Professional Officers Association (POA) in the Commonwealth Public Service brought a single professional structure with common position descriptions. This put librarians and engineers onto the same rates of pay - heresy indeed. This is what can be achieved when you have a librarian at the head of a major union! The opposite is also true. When librarians are not at the forefront of the movement, the male-dominated unions, committed as they are to the maintenance of relativities, are largely indifferent to the issue of pay equity for professional librarians. 'It is a brave organisation or (job evaluation) consultant who dramatically overturns traditional relativities in a major way' (Burton 1990 p9). There is plenty of union rhetoric on pay equity but not a lot of action.

Enterprise bargaining effect

There is a particular risk for librarians in enterprise bargaining described by Currie (1992 p82). It is the focus on job flexibility (multi-skilling) to achieve productivity gains. This can bring a blurring of responsibilities leading to moves to dispense with mandatory qualifications. A large union with only a small number of professional librarians will probably see this factor as one of little interest to the membership as a whole and therefore a possible trade-off. Currie states that this pressure on mandatory qualifications may ultimately see an end to the profession. This view is given some validity when some chief librarian's jobs in NSW are advertised without reference to mandatory qualifications in librarianship.

Remedial action

Changes in our professional association and our unions

Two issues stand out from the foregoing as important issues for reform. First, given that women in general and librarians in particular have received little support from the union movement, it would appear that librarians should endeavour to push for even more industrial support through the professional association. There is a difficulty with ALIA's charter. The organisation is not only an association of professional members (employees) but also an association of institutional members (employers). Encel, Bullard and Cass (1972 p95) recommended that ALIA (then the Library Association of Australia) should consider re-inventing itself as a professional association without the obstruction of the institutional members (of whom there were relatively few). ALIA is primarily a professional association: 'it protects occupational status and job control through eligibility for membership as a criterion for librarianship appointments... the emphasis is on professionalism around information management rather than industrial strategies to increase pay rates' (Reed 1996 p510).

However, in the past decade ALIA has been providing more in the area of industrial support. Prime examples are the strong involvement of the ALIA industrial adviser in the preparation of the librarian's case for the Pay Equity Inquiry and in the subsequent test case in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to gain an equitable salary structure for library workers in NSW. Second, although the library profession is highly unionised, unfortunately some librarians are in unions which do little or nothing to promote their quest for pay equity or equal access to 'discretionary components of remuneration such as bonuses, company cars and other fringe benefits' (A woman's worth 1996 p37). In fact a small group of local government librarians, ably supported by ALIA's industrial adviser, have recently (2001) been successful in the anti-discrimination jurisdiction regarding equal access to benefits (private use of cars). Until the latter stages, the relevant union did not support these librarians, who funded their own legal counsel. Latterly the union at the state level agreed to fund the appeal (subsequently won) and any further protracted legal actions necessary to have the Council comply. Librarians need to lobby their unions, at the highest levels, for support.

Changes in attitudes

Women and librarians need to embrace the opportunities afforded by the justification of pay equity as a proven ill, in the Pay Equity Inquiry. For too long it has been difficult to pinpoint the extent of the discriminatory practices which infect the workplace. It is very often a lack of understanding of the issues, which lead to these practices by both employers and employees. Admittedly these are complex and of long standing. Clear articulation of the findings of the Inquiry and the industrial provisions of the Pay Equity Principle need to the made through unions and employers so that an acceptance of the issues can bring about a change in attitudes. It will be a long, slow process that will need to change entrenched values and attitudes.

Conclusion

Where to from here?

The 30 June 2000 formal adoption of the new Equal Remuneration Principle within the NSW Industrial Relations Act 1996, will lead to a new deal for women and particularly librarians. It brings the potential for improved remuneration, since the undervaluation of their work was formally found to exist (http://www.industrialrelations.nsw.gov.au/Scripts/isyswebext.dll?op=get&uri=/isysquery/irl5a61/7/doc). The reasons for this finding had their roots in the history of the profession, failure to adequately value librarian's work and to recognise their qualifications and this during many years when their work underwent substantial technological change and development. 'Justice Glynn recommended that a full assessment to remedy the identified disadvantage (for librarians) should be conducted through the new Equal Remuneration Principle as soon as it was adopted' (Teece 2000, p36).

Grasping first prize

All this success in the courts seems too good to be true, and perhaps it is. The limiting of the principle to awards, and therefore union involvement, may see it subverted by vested interests, and justified by its final proviso, the provision of 'economic safeguards'. Suspicion and cynicism is understandable: after a hundred years of disadvantage and disappointments, women and librarians cannot really believe it will all happen at the stroke of a pen, as it were.

However, in March 2002 the Full Bench of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission brought down a landmark decision giving NSW government library workers substantial pay rises of up to twenty-six per cent. Further, it formalised the professional status of librarians and library technicians and ruled that they must hold qualifications ratified as conferring eligibility for membership of ALIA. This was the first decision made by the IRC under the Equal Remuneration Principle.

There was an interim award ordered, to give effect to the pay increases, and this was ratified in November 2002 as the Crown employees (librarians, library assistants, library technicians and archivists) award 2002. Now there is clear evidence and precedent for other library workers to use in developing claims in other jurisdictions, such as state awards and enterprise agreements. These are practical 'money in the hand' decisions where there have been genuine gains made.

This is but the first step in what will be a protracted battle to see these gains spread throughout the wider library community. Not the least of these battles will be within local government, the home of the majority of library workers. Success here will be slow and painful especially for those covered by enterprise agreements. Here library workers will be a small number of one profession among a multiplicity of traditionally male-dominated professions, sub-professions and trades. If their concerns regarding issues of pay equity are not supported at the local level, they may seek to block registration of an enterprise agreement due to its failure to comply with the Pay Equity Principle. This action would have serious repercussions for them, both with their employer and the large majority of their fellow employees. This is not an action for the faint-hearted.

Dr Jocelynne Scutt (Claire Burton Memorial Lecture 2000 p3) speaks of the difficulties associated with moving forward in these matters:

Time and time again, over and over women have fought to bring about a revolution in the way in which pay rates are set, and women's work is set by them. Over and over, time and time again, we have appeared to have won at least a small measure. Then come the backward steps or subversion by dominant notions of work value and women's worth. Too often when we make real gains, there is an implication that the winning of the principle is enough, without the practice (or the money) that goes along with it, as if the words are sufficient for women, not the making of the words meaningful. This is the principle of 'no change' when women are required to be satisfied with 'what is' rather than 'what might be' or satisfied with 'wins' that measure lower on the scale, because the first prize remains elusively positioned, and taken out of women's grasp.

It would be an interesting exercise to revisit this topic in five or ten year's time to see the progress that has been made after the gains made in 2000 and 2002. It may be that the future will continue to be the fulfilment of Her Honour Justice Mary Gaudron's oft-quoted statement in the Pay Equity Inquiry (Volume 1 p5):

We got equal pay once, then we got it again, and then we got it again, and now we still don't have it.

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Biographical information

Irene Bonella BA (Lib &anp; Inf Sci) M Applied Science (Lib & Inf Man) is assistant manager (Central and Outreach Services) at Wollongong City Library. She has been for some years an active campaigner in the struggle for both pay equity and equal remuneration especially the question of equal access to non-monetary and salary sacrifice benefits in the local government context, such as the provision of cars, for librarians.