It’s time for equal pay

The pandemic is worsening the pay gap between men and women.

On 19 August, The Age confirmed this: "The Workplace Gender Equality Agency has estimated the new national gender pay gap at 14.2 per cent, an increase of 0.8 percentage points over the past six months, based on biannual Australian Bureau of Statistics average weekly earnings data".

The Australian Gender Equality Council states it simply: "Today women are paid 20% less than men".

The Equality Rights Alliance lays out other stark facts: Women are more likely to live below the poverty line; on average, women retire with approximately half the retirement savings of men; and they spend twice as much time on unpaid work as men.

In response, the Australian union movement has started the Organise for Equality campaign, which we will be featuring on our site and our social media outlets.

You can check out the campaign's video here.

To launch that campaign, they are promoting an easy-to-use pay gap calculator.

Give it a whirl here.

You can also check out video of Organise for Equality campaign issues here.