Some industrial awards in the past had a single man's wage and a married man's wage.

So is that equal pay with single men or married men?

The mainspring of this issue is unequal pay between government and non-government employees in the social & community sector, due to the hegemony of the NSW public sector union over the state's bureaucracy- the Public Service Association (PSA) - not gender-based pay discrimination or ASU "militancy". This author has a fundamental misunderstanding of this issue, courtesy of them interpreting this issue through the (oversimplified) frame of marxist ideology.
I work in this sector and I am a man and I know many men who work in this sector, so this cannot be generalised and cast as simply a gender-based discrimination issue. The issue here is the pay discrepancies between government and non-government employees in the sector who perform the same/similar roles. Put simply, the dominant power of the PSA within the NSW Government and it's bureaucracy became entrenched under the former labour government(s) and resulted in a culture of empire building within state government departments, funneling more $$ into government-run social & community services at the expense of crowding out and underfunding equivalent services in the NGO aspect of the sector. So, it's been the "militancy" of the PSA that has engendered this pay (& subsequent service) gap and I think it would serve the ASU's own "militancy" efforts to close this gap by recognising the fact that it's been militant unionism (courtesy of PSA empire) that has been the driving force behind the entrenchment of this pay disparity.

Excellent article, Liz. More equality on analysis of issues of interest to women like equal pay.I worked in a meatworks in the late 1970s- the union set up was the check off system- union dues deducted from your pay- compulsory. These union guys had been colluding with the employers for years to keep women at a labourer rate and promote men over them to the kill line - as slaughterers, boners and slicers.Some women had been there for years. When the existance of not one but two seniority lists was discovered the women were enraged and forced the foreman to rip it up. He chose not to argue with women armed with boning knives! So overnight every woman who had more than one years service was promoted to the kill line. A pay rise of about150-200 % depending on the days kill. The other big gain for the women at this meatworks was that the labourers were the first to be stood down and the ones with seniority were given maintenance and smallgoods work to keep them going. So you see how it works, men because they need money for their interests like drinking, shouting their mates, smoking, gambling, womanising need a job. They get priority. Whereas women who have to put the children first only get a job if their is plenty to go around. The current Walmart case in the US has shone the light on entrenched workplace discrimination where women are kept at an unskilled rate, no chance of pay rise all their lives. The same in the public service, where women start as clerks and die as clerks. Not only is the concept of males getting paid more money simply because of their appendage an outdated and primitive idea, it is completely incongruous with the modern reality. Women should get the married man's rate and men the single mans rate. Now that would be much fairer as they said in Dr Zhivago

Hestia
Anecdotal as it may seem, but I remember working in a factory that had a laboratory and a main processing plant, with the laboratory being mostly staffed by women, and the main processing plant being mostly staffed by men.

If there was a breakdown of the main processing plant, all personnel were expected to go into the main processing area where they were given maintenance tasks.

It was basically impossible to get the women out of the laboratory into the main processing plant, even for maintenance tasks such as TA jobs.

Because they did not want to do jobs outside the air conditioned laboratory, the women were never able to get higher paid jobs, and were never able to become a foreman or team leader in the factory.

So, if you only want to mention places that might purposely discriminate against women, there would be many places where women mostly limit themselves, and discriminate against themselves.

Vanna

My sister did a apprenticeship in electrical technology which included her regularly maintaining and calibrating equipment having to climb to the top of a chimney stack in one of Melbourne's well known brewery's. She just recently graduated with a teaching degree and teaches maths and science to year nines and eights.

You regularly make sweeping generalisations about women - which are complete figments of your imagination. And, like JamesH only appear to rise to the surface of OLO on topics regarding women.

Hate to break it to you but your mother was a woman.

Really well-researched article, Liz; and interesting too. :)