- The Guardian
- Issue #2135
The Communist Party highlights the importance of women being active in struggle to improve their employment prospects and their conditions of work, taking a stand alongside male workers to fight for improvements, for a better life against exploiting employers and the governments that represent the employers’ interests.
Thus, when Treasurer Jim Chalmers as part of the current election campaign boasts a reduction in the gender pay gap under Labor, he is lying. Total income is what matters, and that tells another story. The average weekly earnings of males are $1,670.80 and those of females $1,271.90 – a gender pay gap of $398.90 per week!
Nurses – a predominantly female workforce – remain overworked, stressed from understaffing and lack of resources, and low paid. Their pay and working conditions do not reflect the skills and importance of the work they do.
The Australian Greens are calling for equal pay for work of equal value. Labor inserted this principle in the Fair Work Act, but its implementation is missing.
Prices continue to rise, putting pressure on household budgets. The cost of housing, power bills, education, transport, and other essentials will continue to rise under the major parties. Neither of the major parties would put price caps on services or rental accommodation. After all, that would hurt private profits! The capitalist state is run in the interests of capital, not the people.
HOUSING
Eighty per cent of Australia’s one parent families are headed by women. Single mothers are less likely to be working than single fathers in one parent families with dependent children. Social security payments are below the poverty line and working full-time is difficult, with childcare unaffordable or inaccessible.
Women are less likely to be able to save for a deposit on a home. In the major cities affordable accommodation is becoming a rare commodity.
Older women paying off a mortgage experience higher levels of stress than their male peers, which impacts their health and wellbeing. As housing becomes even less affordable, the number of women experiencing homelessness continues to rise at a higher rate than that for men. The 2021 census revealed a dramatic increase in the number of homeless women.
EMANCIPATION
The struggle for emancipation must go beyond equality with men. Men, like their sisters are exploited under capitalism. Progressive reforms can never be taken for granted, as they are constantly rolled back.
Struggles for progressive reforms will never end under capitalism. Only under socialism can they be guaranteed.
As a first step, it is necessary to elect a government of a new type based on a coalition of left and progressive forces. At the same time, the struggle must be won on the ground, outside of parliament. This struggle must be waged by women and men, shoulder to shoulder in the interest of the working class.
CPA POLICY
A socialist society aspires to enhancing the position of women in society, particularly those women who form part of the working class. Female workers make up a significant section of the working class in industries such as food processing, textiles, hospitality, community work, and manufacturing. Through their labour, they are exploited like their male counterparts, but they are subjected to additional types of exploitation and hardships.
The capitalist class continues to find ways to take advantage of the historical inequality of the sexes. Industries comprised of predominately women workers pay workers more poorly than male dominated industries.
Economic oppression of women in the workplace is facilitated by the mass media that continues to portray women in subordinate roles to men.
Religious institutions and conservative political parties have traditionally promoted the idea of women as the nurturer of the family, as opposed to being a breadwinner. At the same time, the capitalist class realises that bringing women into the workforce creates a larger base of workers to exploit selectively.
Capitalism cannot provide real solutions to women’s problems because the system as a whole is driven by the profit ambitions of private companies and not the social needs of the community.
The Communist Party of Australia supports the call for women to be paid the same wage as men for work of equal value, but stresses that we cannot stop at this demand. The main obstacle to women’s freedom under a capitalist system is the exploitation of their labour. Like men, women should be afforded the real value of their labour. The cost of childcare should be included in the price of labour.
Many women are employed in small businesses, where their work conditions and pay can easily be an in-house arrangement and not open to scrutiny.
Unemployment and casual work are major concerns for women workers. In areas hard hit by recession and the decline of the manufacturing sector, many women have no opportunity to gain employment and do not figure in unemployment statistics. They are a forgotten section of society.
The CPA advocates:
The immediate introduction of equal pay for work of equal value.
Part-time or full-time employment to be on a permanent basis with full rights to all entitlements such as sick and other personal leave, annual leave and long service leave.
The end of social security payments based on relationship status, so that women have access to an independent income.
The enforcement of anti-discrimination and affirmative action legislation to assist Indigenous, migrant and disabled women to become economically independent.
The provision of publicly funded before-school, after-school and long day child-care facilities for all who need them and for good quality, free early childhood education and care services, including after-hours, holiday, and occasional care, in communities, schools and workplaces.
The payment of parental leave for at least 26 weeks.
National legalisation for the right of women to have an abortion.
The elimination of all types of violence against women.
The enforcement of laws against sexual harassment.
