executive summary -...

Victorian Inquiry into the

Labour Hire Industry and

Insecure Work

Submission from

WIRE Women’s Information& Referral Exchange Inc.

Friday 20 November 2015

Submission to the Victorian inquiry into the labour hire industry and insecure work

WIRE Women’s Information and Referral Exchange Inc. ABN 98 957 157 Page

Contents

Executive Summary...............................................................................................3Introduction...........................................................................................................3WIRE Women’s Information and Referral Exchange Inc.........................................4The gendered nature of insecure work..................................................................5

The impact of caring role on women...................................................................5The impact of casualised work on women..........................................................6The impact of fixed term employment on women..............................................7The impact of contracting out and Labour hire on women..................................8Insecure work vulnerability to poverty in old age.............................................10

Recommendations...............................................................................................11Reducing gender discrimination in the workforce and in the community..........11Family violence.................................................................................................12Contracting out and labour hire........................................................................13

Conclusion...........................................................................................................13



Executive SummaryWIRE Women’s Information and Referral Exchange Inc. is an acknowledged expert at the forefront of research and service delivery to combat financial abuse in the context of family violence. We were one of the first Australian organisations to highlight the seriousness of financial abuse and the devastating impact it has on thousands of women and children. Financial abuse is acknowledged as a form of family violence in the Victorian Family Violence ACT 2008 but industrially, many practices that are abusive and exploitative of women and other vulnerable groups are not condemned as abusive or unfair. Instead they are seen as revenue raising strategies or passed off as just being the way things are. We can no longer turn a blind eye to the practices that leave vulnerable groups like women exploited in the workplace without access to a fair deal.

The consequence of insecure work can be a lifetime of poverty and reduced opportunity to workers and their children. For these reasons we are delighted that the Victorian government has set up this inquiry, so that the spotlight can not only be turned on the exploitative practices, but also on the solutions.

In this submission WIRE submits the following observations:

Due to the gendered nature of work women are more vulnerable to insecure work

Women’s responsibilities as carers have direct and indirect impacts on women’s ability to gain and maintain secure and decent work

The impacts of women not being access to decent and secure employment can be a lifetime of poverty, and decreased access to opportunities for herself and her children

Female-dominated professions are more likely to be lower paid; and women experience high level of work insecurity, including fix-term contracts and the casualization of the workforce

The rise in the contracting out of services by companies and government agencies has increased the number of vulnerable workers, including women, being exploited

Solutions need to acknowledge the gendered nature of work and the need for action by government, as well as employers and employer associations.

IntroductionWIRE Women’s Information welcomes the Victorian Inquiry into the labour hire industry and insecure work. WIRE’s vision is for a society where women are safe, respected, valued, empowered and free to make genuine choices in their lives. Women’s safety and empowerment are inextricably interwoven with financial security. For most Australians, financial security is achieved through the gaining and maintaining of decent and secure employment. The issue of financial security is gendered. Societal normative expectations of men and women have a profound effect on women’s access to and the maintaining of decent employment in which their contribution is valued and respected.

This inquiry provides an opportunity to provide a gendered lens to the issue of employment and in particular, the labour hire industry and insecure work.



WIRE Women’s Information is writing this submission to amplify the voices of the thousands of women who contact WIRE every year. We do this not just by sharing our expertise as a service delivery agency, but by enabling the stories of the women themselves be heard.

In our submission we will highlight the common themes and concerns we hear from women that contact our service for support, information and referral. We will use case examples where possible. Please keep in mind that when we tell the story of one woman, that woman’s story reflects hundreds of women whose voices may not have been heard. The names provided in all case studies are false to protect the identity of WIRE service users.

WIRE Women’s Information and Referral Exchange Inc.WIRE Women’s Information has been operating for over 30 years. WIRE believes that all women deserve to be safe, valued, respected and have access to equal opportunity. WIRE is Victoria’s only women’s service that provides information referral and support to ALL Victorian women regardless of the issues they are facing. WIRE has established several programs aimed at improving women’s financial security including job coaching, mock interviews, employment workshops and financial capability/ literacy workshops for women that have experienced family violence. WIRE has a high volume of contact with women experiencing financial hardship and financial issues.

WIRE’s services include: Women’s Support Line (9am – 5 pm Monday to Friday)

o Phone, real time online and email support Women’s information Centre (9.30am – 4.30pm Monday to Friday)

o Face-to-face support without appointmento Legal clinicso Employment programso Computer classes and internet workshopso Public access computers and free wifi

AMICA Club: Homeless and isolated women’s lunch and activities program (Tuesday to Thursday 11.30am – 3pm)

Financial capabilityo Women’s financial capacity building within relationships website development

projecto Increase financial capability for women that have experienced family violence

Trainingo WIRE is a Registered Training Organisation and provides training to all its Women

Support Line volunteerso Professional Development training for the community sector

Information disseminationo Resources on website available 24/7o Information booklets developed and written in plain English for women on issues

such as family violence and stalking, available for freeo Fortnightly e-bulletin delivered to over 3,000 email addresses



The gendered nature of insecure work

The gendered nature of work leaves women more susceptible to insecure work and in turn poverty.

WIRE defines insecure work as being work which has one or multiple of the following elements:

Irregular hours An income which is irregular and unpredictable Lacking permanency The work jeopardises the ability to carry out routine family and caring commitments Employment is jeopardised because of organisational or employer preconceptions about

gender

The impact of caring role on women

Women who leave secure employment to care for family, are not only giving up the security of permanent paid work; they are giving up the following benefits and opportunities:

Sick leave Annual leave Access to permanent hours and rosters Control over their hours Access to promotion and professional development

Women have an unequal responsibility as carers of children, parents, spouses and other family members, and this greatly affects their capacity to undertake secure and decent employment. This has a direct impact on women’s ability to accumulate superannuation and savings over their lifetime. As their career trajectory is interrupted or side-track yet again, their ability to accumulate wealth and maintain secure employment through promotion and strategic career positioning is limited.

Women take time out of the workforce, particularly to care for young children. This career break can extend for a number of years and again has a direct impact on women’s ability to gain and maintain secure employment. Long career breaks impacts a woman’s ability to renter the workforce. Often women are forced to return to roles that are part-time, lower paid, casualised, lack security and offer less opportunities for progression.

The vast majority of men after starting a family do not change their working arrangements to manage the care needs of dependents. In Australia caring for children is still very much women’s work. Only 3 per cent of families have mothers who work full-time and a father who is at home or works part-time.1 The gender pay gap of 17.9 per cent2 often forces women to be one to give up full- time work as it is their male partner that earns the primary income.

Our industrial system is predicated on a myth that women choose insecure work. That women willingly trade off their financial security to take on caring responsibilities. The fact is for many

1 ‘ The Wife and Times’, Manne Anne, The Monthly November 20142 Gender pay gap statistics, Workplace, Gender, Equality Agency, September 2015



women there is no choice. There were 780,000 single mother families in June 2012, making up the vast majority of one-parent families (81 per cent)3. These women have no choice but to be the primary care givers to their children. There is also the societal and family pressure for women to put their caring responsibilities above their career; plus there is the financial pressure for the parent with the lowest income (usually the woman) to give their career in order to take on caring responsibilities.

“I often think that the government job I had, I should have stayed there. It was just better. But there was pressure from my mum, pressure from my son’s father, ‘You’re selfish going to work and leaving your son in crèche.’ ” 4

Quote from a woman who left secure employment to care for children and is now underemployed and in insecure employment.

The impact of casualised work on women

Women undertake more casual work than men. Fifty-five per cent of casuals are women according to the November 2011 ABS5. Almost a quarter of all Australian employees are engaged as casual employees6.

“22 per cent of female employees and 17 per cent of male employees were in casual work without the stability of leave entitlements.” 7

Women speak to WIRE about the bind casual work leaves them in. They gave up full-time work often to care for children and balance their family and home commitments, but when they tried to return to work all that was available was casual work or their employer told them the only part time work available was fixed term.

Ironically many women become casual employees to have the flexibility to meet their caring responsibilities such as taking children to and from school, but end up still struggling to balance work and family commitments with the added burden of having an irregular and inadequate income. Women tell WIRE that they are too scared to refuse to do a shift because they fear losing hours in the future. Thus for many women casual employment does not live up to their expectations and trying to get back into a secure employment proves very difficult.

3 Australian Bureau of statistics One parent families 2012, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Products/6224.0.55.001~Jun%202012~Chapter~one%20Parent%20Families 4 ‘Eviction from the middleclass: how tenuous jobs penalise women’, The Conversation , March 7 20145 2011 ABS, Forms of Employment, November 2011, Cat 6359.0 34 ABS,6 Victorian Inquiry into the Labour Hire Industry and Insecure work Background paper, October 2015 ,p127 Australian Bureau of Statistics 4125.0 - Gender Indicators, Australia, Aug 2013 http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/products/D75D00B0F3C80434CA2578FD0017FF50?OpenDocument



Joan’s Story

Joan is typical of the women that come to WIRE’s weekly job coaching program. She left work to start a family and be a stay-at-home mum. The arrangement was made between herself and her husband. It worked well as her husband, the primary wage earner earned considerably more than Joan.

Now six years on Joan is in the process of separating and is caring for two young children. She is looking for work but after being out of her profession for six years, she is finding nothing but employers’ doors slamming in her face. She talks about losing her confidence and feels that no employer will hire her back in her profession of choice even though she is highly qualified with a degree in accountancy. She is working casually as a waitress and has irregular hours. It is not enough to pay the bills but at least it is something. Joan has to accept all work offered by her employer. She needs every dollar she can get. Joan laments that at times getting work at short notice makes it really difficult for her to be there for the kids.

Joan’s separation was amicably agreed to, but she still finds that she is staring poverty in the face. Whilst her ex-husband for the last six years has had several promotions, Joan’s career has stagnated and the only work available is poorly paid and insecure. Her low pay means low superannuation payments and no opportunity to save. Joan is terrified what old age will bring: she can see herself struggling to pay the rent for the rest of her life.

Joan though thinks she is lucky she has a good relationship with her ex-husband and he gives her more money than is required by the Child Support Agency but she knows of many women whose ex- husbands refuse to pay any child maintenance. Even with the child support she is getting she is just scrapping by and feels that she has completely lost her financial independence.

The impact of fixed term employment on women

Fixed term contracts see employees carrying the employer’s risk, if the latter’s contracts with buyers are not renewed or if there is a downturn in sales.

Female-dominated occupations and industries, such as the retail, food, hospitality, social and community services sectors, are amongst the highest employers of casual, part-time and contract workers8; in addition, these industries are lowly paid.

Social and community and the education sector have a high level of fixed term contracts due to government and philanthropic trust funding practices. It has become common place for educational institutions to employ staff on short-term contracts, rather than the employer carry the risk of paying out redundancies if government funding practices change or the demand for a particular course recedes. Unfortunately whilst the risk has been shifted to the employee, wages have not increased so that employees can mitigate against the risk.

“Almost two-thirds of Victorian state school teachers in their first five years of teaching are on short-term contracts, leading to job uncertainty and high staff

8 Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Women’s Committee Submission to the Secure Jobs Inquiry, February 13 2012

Emily’s story

Emily is from India. She is highly educated and articulate with a bubbly and engaging personality. English is her first language and she has a degree in marketing and commerce. She came to Australia to pursue her passion to be a social worker. To Australian tertiary institutions a person like Emily is a highly sought after and lucrative commodity: “Universities make money from us, as well as Indian businesses that work with the universities to secure foreign students.”The only way Emily could afford to do her social work masters in Australia was to work and learn. She was assured that for a person with her skills and talents she would have no difficultly to secure a well-paid job. The truth was the exact opposite. It took Emily 8 months to get a job. In desperation she took a job that she knew from the outset was exploitative. She worked for an organisation contracted by Australian Post and worked as casual retail associate.For the first 40 hours, staff get paid only $10.00 an hour, after which you were considered to be in training for four to six months and the wage went to $14.00 an hour. If the owners were satisfied that you were ‘appropriately trained’, wages went up to $17.00 an hour (still under the Award rate).



turnovers… Lack of work continuity also makes it difficult for teachers to obtain mortgages or car loans, and can mean they miss out on holidays between jobs.” 9

Many women that attend our employment workshops or become WIRE volunteers have lost their employment or become underemployed due to their employer contracting out positions or appointing people on short-term contracts. In particular we speak to many teachers in the TAFE sector unable to find secure employment. Many of these women attend job coaching in their 40s and 50s feel that their only hope of finding secure employment is to reskill and start a completely new career.

Many women talk to WIRE about leaving full-time to go on parental leave. They plan to return to work part-time because they know they will be carrying the majority of the work load for caring for their family. Their industrial agreement states that they have a right to request part-time work when they return from parental leave. What they find when it is time to return is that the only part-time work available is fixed term, with very limited career progression possibilities and little access to professional development. Women say that they feel that employers treat them as mothers first and career professionals second. This makes them feel vulnerable and leaves them forever fearful that their contract will not be renewed. In stark contrast, men with uninterrupted work history get opportunities for which women know they will not even be considered.

The impact of contracting out and Labour hire on women

Labour hire and the contracting out of services leave women vulnerable to insecure and exploitative and often illegal labour practices. The contracting out of services to the cheapest bidder not only puts a downward pressure on wages but also on basic conditions of employment. At WIRE we hear many troubling stories of women being employed in exploitative insecure work by unscrupulous employers who profit from their vulnerability. Many of these stories come from women who have come to Australia to study and work.

9 http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/twothirds-of-new-teachers-on-contracts-20140804-100bdv.html#ixzz3r5JI0l9r

However workers at this rate would then get their shifts cut down to one full day a week as other ‘trainees’ were hired to work more shifts.Emily said that nearly all staff were from overseas like herself. Whilst they knew what was happening was wrong, no one was willing to go to the authorities for fear of losing whatever income they were receiving no matter how inadequate. Emily has spoken to many other overseas students that have had similar experiences. Emily is lucky she was able to find employment at a retail outlet that pays her properly but she knows that many of her ex-colleagues are not so lucky; they are either not working or stuck working for exploitative companies keen to make a buck at their expense. Despite their hard work these people don’t have enough money to pay for basic living expenses.



Unfortunately this story is not an isolated incident. It is the most vulnerable—women, overseas students, people with English as a second language, those that have no option but to work in insecure and exploitative employment—that are victims to unscrupulous employers. There needs to be significant negative consequences not only for employers and contractors that exploit employees, but also for the companies that work with contractors who profit from illegal and exploitative practice. The defence ‘we didn’t know’ is not acceptable. For any company considering contracting out work, due diligence must include ensuring that selected labour hire firms or contractors pay their staff at legal rates and follow established OH&S practices.

Insecure work: vulnerability to family violence

Women experiencing domestic violence are often disadvantaged and vulnerable in the labour market.10

“Women affected by domestic violence are also more likely to have a disrupted work history and more likely to occupy casual and part-time work than women with no experience of violence.” 11

Financial abuse in the context of family violence takes many forms but includes preventing a person from seeking or keeping employment. WIRE’s 2014 research into financial abuse, ‘Relationship problems and money: women talk about financial abuse’,12 highlighted the issue of employment. Many women were prevented from working whilst in the abusive relationship or had no control over how their income was spent. For many the experience of family violence and financial abuse created a significant barrier to obtaining and maintaining secure employment.

10 Domestic Violence in Australia an overview of the issues, 22 November 2011, Australian Parliamentary Library



11 Domestic Violence in Australia an overview of the issues, 22 November 2011, Australian Parliamentary Library 12 Relationship Problems and Money: Women talk about Financial abuse, Cameron Prue (2014)



“It had a big impact on me being able to get work because my ex-husband retained the business and it was one of the largest businesses in town and he said to me, ‘Look I have blackened your name everywhere, you won’t be able to get

employment because no one will be game enough to employ you…’ ”13

Serena aged 50

“…and also because the relationship was so abusive, my capacity to work went down as well and my income actually dropped because I wasn’t able to juggle everything and my energy levels weren’t there.”14

Hilary aged 46

Lack of a stable income can make it harder for women to leave abusive relationships especially if the perpetrator is the primary wage earner. And even if women are able to remain in the family home, they have to rebuild their lives to ensure that they have the money to pay for the family expenses in the long term. For women in insecure employment, they may not feel financially secure enough to leave an abusive relationship and support themselves and their family.

For this reason it is important that women in employment who are experiencing family violence are supported to maintain their employment. Providing women with family violence support such as additional days’ leave to manage a family violence situation or to have someone in the workplace they can speak to, will assist women to maintain their income-earning capacity, secure employment, and in turn maximise their options.

Insecure work vulnerability to poverty in old age

Women in insecure employment have fewer opportunities to save for retirement. This is compounded by the 17.9 per cent gender pay gap, and women’s much reduced earning capacity and career opportunities when they take time off work to care for children. In addition women who separate and divorce are often disadvantaged by their decision to forgo their career to care for children, a decision based on the assumption that their partners would support them financially.

Given the constraints women face in their 40s and 50s, no wonder many women later face hardship in old age. Not being able to contribute enough to superannuation or savings, exacerbates an already disadvantageous position. An increasing number of women face poverty and uncertainty with housing. Many women had precarious jobs that were difficult and unsustainable, with some jobs posing mental and physical health risks.15

Insecure employment affects women’s entire lives. Retiring with little savings and a poor super balance may mean homelessness for some women; for others this may limit their options to live independently as they are unable to afford mobility aids and other supports.

13 Relationship Problems and Money: Women talk about Financial abuse, Cameron Prue (2014), p.3014 Relationship Problems and Money: Women talk about Financial abuse, Cameron Prue (2014), p.3015 ‘Eviction from the middleclass: how tenuous jobs penalise women’, The Conversation, March 7 2014



Recommendations

Reducing gender discrimination in the workforce and in the community

Many of the following recommendations have been taken from the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Women’s Committee Submission to the Secure Jobs Inquiry, February 2012. WIRE believes that these recommendations are as relevant today as they were in 2012.

Whilst we understand that some recommendations relate to matters in the Federal jurisdiction we have included them so that the Victorian government can use its influence to lobby the Federal government for change.

Victorians operate in a gendered industrial environment. The Victorian government in all its thinking and actions in this space, must be aware that many existing practices directing and indirectly impact women’s access to secure work, and women’s ability to achieve financial security. The Victorian government has a pivotal role to play in addressing these issues and reducing barriers women have to secure employment.

In particular we believe the Victorian government is well placed to be a leader in the community and throughout Victorian industry to bring about positive outcomes for women that will be felt throughout a woman’s entire life by promoting fair and decent employment practices.

Government to take leadership and spearhead a campaign:o promoting the value of caring work and in particular encouraging men to take on a

more active family caring role,

o recognising the skills and expertise women bring to the workplace and

o promoting the need for secure and meaningful employment for women, many of whom juggle work and family commitments.

Government to revise and update its highly successful ‘Best Practice: Family and Work life Balance Manual 2007’ and promote it throughout Victoria to a wide variety of industries

Reduce fixed term contracts by providing more certainty around government funding in the social and community services and educational institutions

Maintain protections and support for employees with respect to individual flexibility agreements, which have been proven to disadvantage women workers and employees with family responsibilities

Support equal employment opportunity and best practice which encourage and support work practices aimed at ensuring workplace diversity and equal opportunity

Implement a stringent reporting, monitoring and enforcement framework aimed at preventing discrimination.



The Government has an opportunity to show leadership and generate cultural change through legislation, programs and supportive infrastructure. In striving for equal opportunity for all Australians to have meaningful and rewarding employment, and to achieve equality for workers in insecure employment arrangements, improvements are needed to:

i. Provide sufficient flexibility in permanent working arrangements for employees with caring responsibilities so that they are not forced into insecure work;

ii. Improve the rights of those who are working in insecure work so that they are entitled to greater control over working hours, basic entitlements and better job security; and

iii. Promote and encourage more equal sharing of caring roles in modern families, through workplace regulation and programmes.

These improvements can be achieved through:

1. Amendments to employment legislation and improvements to the safety net by extending the right to request flexible work arrangements to include all employees who care for or support, or expect to care for or support, a person who reasonably relies on them for care or support;

2. Requiring employers to properly consider and reasonably accommodate employees’ requests for flexible work arrangements to meet family and caring responsibilities;

3. Ensuring all employees have a right to appeal an employer’s unreasonable refusal to Fair Work Australia;

4. Extending the amount of (dedicated) carer’s leave available to employees;

5. Extending the scope of carer’s leave to include providing support for a dependent not just in circumstances of illness or emergency;

6. Inclusion of insecure workers in the safety net system, (for example extending the definition of ‘employee’) to provide equal entitlements to basic rights including some forms of paid leave, superannuation and insurance;

7. Allowing insecure workers to elect to convert to permanent employment status, including the proposed ‘secure employment orders’; and

8. Legislate for host employer’s workplace agreements to apply to all workers in connection with that employer, including labour hire, agency, temporary, casual and contract employees where the host agreement is superior.

Family violence

That all Victorian public servants and government funded agencies including companies for which the government procures services and products, provide family violence leave provision clause in their industrial agreements, policy and procedures. These provisions will also include Human Resources staff and appropriate managers receiving training on identifying and responding to family violence in a work setting.

We support the family violence support provision being made available to all employees, by having the entitlement to support and family violence leave enshrined in the Fair Work Act.



Contracting out and labour hire

Companies that utilise labour hire, franchises and contractors

o have a legal onus to ensure that workers engaged in fulfilling their outsourced work have pay and conditions that meets the relevant award

o Must be able to demonstrate that they undertook due diligence to ensure services and companies they utilise are compliant with the Fair Work Act and other industrial legal requirements

o Are heavily penalised if they are found to have engaged companies, franchises or labour hire companies that have acted illegally in regard to employment practices

Whistle blowers that alert authorities to illegal employment practices are protected from prosecution in relation to matters such as infringing visa conditions.

Conclusion

WIRE Women’s Information and Referral Exchange is grateful for the opportunity to submit this paper to the Inquiry. In this submission, we have highlighted the gendered nature of vulnerabilities around insecure work, and the impact women’s responsibilities as carers have on their ability to gain and maintain decent and secure work. We have described how feminised industries are more likely to be lower paid, and have higher levels of employment insecurity. We have proposed a range of recommendations that could be implemented to better protect women in insecure work.

We hope that this inquiry addresses these gendered imbalances, as a step towards providing fair and equal opportunities for all Victorians, both men and women. We look forward to the Victorian Government showing the leadership required to reduce gender inequality in Victoria.

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