Case Law HPM Industries equal pay case (1998) NSWIRC

At the federal level, this case was the first to be heard under the equal remuneration provisions of the Workplace Relations Act 1996, provisions that were initially introduced through the 1993 amendments to the Industrial Relations Act 1988. This case was jointly lodged by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) against a manufacturing company, HPM Industries.

This case involved general hands (men), storemen (men), process workers (women) and packers (women). The pay was set by award, enterprise agreement and over-award payments.

An important issue in the case was how the value of work should be ascertained. The union argued that the metals competency framework was the appropriate measure, however the Commission decided that these competencies reflected mainly skills and knowledge, not the nature of work and conditions, and were not the only means of assessing factors that could attract over-awards (with other factors included timekeeping, productivity, and individual merit).

Although this case soon became bogged down in technical difficulties, the following points explain the progression of the case:

• At the first hearing, Commissioner Simmonds held that once it has been established that the work under scrutiny was of equal value, it was necessary to determine whether wage rates had been established without discrimination based on sex.

• On 4 March 1998, Commission Simmonds found that neither of these issues had been established by the applicant. The different remuneration for the groups to be compared in the HPM case was not the result of direct discrimination. Using sex discrimination definitions in the wage fixing principles rather than that found in the federal Sex Discrimination Act 1984, Commission Simmonds also found against allegations of indirect sex discrimination.

• After re-lodging the case as a work value matter, the case was settled late in 1998 by a new enterprise agreement (after more than three years before the AIRC). Over two and a half years the 44 women got the same rate of pay as applied to their male colleagues employed as General Hands and Storemen. The case also abolished the previously discriminatory wages system (in which a three level performance based wage system applied to male jobs only and discretionary over-award payments to individual employees were paid almost exclusively to men).

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