Case Law Introduction

The litigation risks associated with ignoring pay equity issues at your workplace are significant. This section provides your organisation with a summary of recent judicial developments in this area and the key principles arising from the leading cases.

The basic context to the law on pay equity is the 1907 Harvester Decision by the then Arbitration and Conciliation Commission, which institutionalised the importance of the male breadwinner. This was then followed up in the 1918 Clothing Trades Case which made it clear that women’s work carried less intrinsic value than unskilled work performed by men, a fact evinced by the setting of the female wage rate at 54 per cent of the male rate. In this way, the labour market became embedded with historical distortions and assumptions about what ‘skilled work’ is and what women are worth.

The following cases reflect recent judicial attempts to address these historical distortions. If you would like to read the full decisions for any of these cases, visit the Industrial Relations Commission website at www.airc.gov.au for the relevant jurisdiction.

A history of industrial jurisprudence and legislations relating to equal pay is also provided in the NSW Pay Equity Inquiry Report, available on the NSW Industrial Relations website.

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