Sex/ gender discrimination page 2 of 21

The FWC has today launched the next stage of its gender pay equity research, in which it will examine a dozen awards covering highly-feminised sectors to uncover indicators of gender-based undervaluation of minimum rates, ahead of the 2023-24 annual wage review.

An increase in female managers helped shrink the average gender pay gap to 21.7% this year, down from 22.8%, according to the WGEA's latest gender equality scorecard.

University research commissioned by the FWC has identified 29 "large, highly feminised" and probably undervalued occupations covered by 13 modern awards that it might spotlight in the current annual wage review, in response to the Secure Jobs' imperative to address unequal remuneration and gender undervaluation in minimum rates of pay.

Legislation introduced to Federal Parliament today to protect workers who bring sexual harassment claims from costs orders in most circumstances marks the "final legislative reform" in implementing the recommendations of the landmark Respect@Work report, according to the Albanese Government.

Employment rights legal centre JobWatch says a client survey suggests most employers are failing to take internal complaints of workplace sexual harassment and discrimination seriously or to adequately protect employees, prompting recommendations to expand positive duty and vicarious liability provisions, and actively monitor compliance.

Queensland Council of Unions secretary Jacqueline King says Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke is "receptive" to calls for new gender equity laws replicating the State's legislation that has "made more of a difference" in its first year than in the previous two decades under the Queensland IRC's equal remuneration principle.

A jeweller who showered a manager with gifts and compliments, along with unrequited declarations of his affections and a slap on the bottom, is facing a record damages payout for sexually harassing her and victimising her for complaining about it, while his law firm is under fire for the "intimidatory and vindictive" tone of its correspondence.

Maurice Blackburn's head of employment and industrial law, Josh Bornstein, says damages for discrimination and harassment "remain persistently low" but he expects an upwards trajectory as their impact has been "laid bare" and expectations are now clearer.

The Nobel Prize for economic sciences has been awarded to a Harvard professor who has a penchant for historical detective work, digging into gender differences in labour markets that stretch back to the eighteenth century.

The NTEU is calling for urgent change, after its latest survey found that "s-xual harassment, s-xism, and gender-based bias in tertiary education workplaces continues to be largely ignored and as a result remains firmly entrenched in our universities".