Guidelines on women and award restructuring

This report highlights the major impact that award restructuring has on women workers. It is well understood that award restructuring will have a major impact on all workers. But in the case of women workers, this impact will be even more significant. For women, the restructuring process will either reinforce the existing division of labour by sex or it will mean the revaluing of women’s traditionally undervalued skills. Award restructuring will impact on women differently because women are concentrated in specific industries and occupations, and because unlike male workers, 39 per cent of women work part-time. At each stage the award restructuring process will have to be monitored and adjusted to ensure its responsiveness to women workers and to their particular position in an industry’s workforce. These guidelines have been designed to assist in that adjustment process. They provide specific strategies which can be applied to industry level to reduce the division of men and women into different occupations, classifications and skill categories. Like award restructuring itself, the guidelines are ultimately about removing barriers and increasing flexibility.

Excerpt from published preamble. Show less