November 2001 Volume 82 Number 11 "serving the protectors"
Segregation and Pay Inequity

Many do not understand what pay equity can mean in the police occupation. Police Association (Victoria) industrial officer, Margaret Hogan, highlights two cases of discrimination - one of which focuses on a workplace within SAPOL.

The Police Federation of Australia - Women’s Advisory Committee (PFA - WAC) considered the issue of pay equity within Australasian police jurisdictions at its 2001 conference in Wellington, New Zealand. It is accepted that labour markets generally - in Australia and most OECD countries - have differing outcomes for male and female workers. Australia’s labour market is highly segregated along gender lines, with females congregated in clerical, sales and service industries. Gender segregation such as this facilitates wage discrimination by gender. Women are congregated in occupational groupings, which attract a lower rate of pay than those occupational groupings in which men are congregated.

Recent data show that, in 1998-99, the average taxable income for males was $34,460 and for women was $23,599. The income figure for males is 46% higher than that for females. ABS figures show that the gap between male and female average weekly pay packets increased from $158.40 in May 1998 to $166.10 in May 2000. Women’s participation rate in the workforce is 53% compared to 74% for men.

These statistics exist despite three national equal pay cases, state and federal anti-discrimination legislation and two recent pay equity inquiries in NSW and QLD.

The question considered by the PFA-WAC is whether the segregation and pay inequity prevalent in the general labour market translates to policing, and thus produces the same segregation and pay equity issues.

PFA-WAC considers there are two phenomena at work here: cultural and systemic issues, and issues of work value. PFA-WAC has already presented to the PFA some data relative to the participation rate of women in Australasian police jurisdictions and the ranks they occupy. The data demonstrate that women account for around 15% of the sworn workforce. They are over-represented at the ranks of constable and senior constable and under-represented at the upper ranks. There are cultural and systemic barriers to women’s full participation in policing. Such barriers include policing as a masculine culture, inflexible work practices involving shift work and rosters, lack of suitable employer-sponsored childcare and the lack of flexible employment opportunities such as career breaks and part-time work. These barriers have operated to effectively keep women out of policing in terms of length of service, which, in turn, affects rank attained. It also creates a pay equity issue - effectively a systemic pay gap. Put simply, an over-representation of female members is paid at the lower-rank salary scales and an over-representation of male members is paid at the upper-rank salary scales.

At its 2001 conference, PFA-WAC considered some examples in which a pay gap might exist in terms of “equal pay for work of equal value”. That is, the value placed on work performed by predominantly sworn female employees.

Example 1

In Victoria, a system of “skill allowances” exists and is paid in cases where members have completed a specialist course and take up work in a specialist area. Allowances are paid at two rates and vary from $815pa for a constable through to $2,284pa for a senior sergeant. Consider the skill allowances paid at senior constable rank.

• Skill allowance 1        $917 pa.
• Skill allowance 2        $1,854 pa.

A senior constable employed in a sexual offences and child abuse unit (SOCAU) is paid at skill allowance 1. SOCAUs, as the name suggests, deal with victims of sexual assault and child victims. The senior constables working in SOCAUs are typically women. In fact, the Victoria police force has an exemption under the State Equal Opportunity Act to allocate a certain number of SOCAU positions to women. The Police Association has not and does not oppose this exemption, which is available under the State Equal Opportunity Act.

A senior constable employed in a criminal investigation unit (CIU) - that is, a detective - earns skill allowance 2. Both members have completed courses to be able to hold their respective positions. In the case of the SOCAU member, two courses are completed of six weeks’ duration in total. The CIU member completes a 12-week course.

The argument centres on an analysis of the value of the work that each member is performing. There is anecdotal evidence that SOCAU members perform investigative work similar to that performed by CIU members. SOCAU work requires members to investigate and establish grounds for prosecution for sexual offences and child abuse crimes. This involves fingerprinting, collection of other forensic evidence, conducting specialized interviews with victims and the formulation of briefs for prosecution. Detectives in CIUs conduct interviews, write reports and briefs, make observations at crime scenes and participate in court proceedings. These lists are not exhaustive, but are indicators of the duties performed.

The work is like, but the employer pays a different amount for each.

Example 2

In the South Australia Police (SAPOL), the Sexual Assault Section (SAS) has a staff complement of 11. This unit is staffed entirely by women. There are two major issues raised by the staffing practice. One is that, in SAPOL, women comprise 19% of the sworn workforce. Clearly, to have a representation of 100% in an area where the only rank designated is constable creates a gross over-representation of women and a gender segregation issue with pay equity ramifications. The other issue is why SAPOL has valued the work done in this unit at the lowest paying rank in the organization. Constables working in the SAS are primarily involved in the preparation of statements from victims of sexual assault and provide support to those victims. They also need to take forensic specimens and exhibits and maintain a chain of evidence, arrange for counselling for victims, give evidence in court, maintain good relations with community health and protection agencies and give public lectures. The value placed on women, both as employees and “clients” of SAPOL, are the two intertwined issues in this example.

PFA-WAC is of the view that the issues raised in these examples need to be more fully explored. Is there, for example, a gender-bias concept of value operating in these two examples? That is, is the lower skill allowance for SOCAU employees in Victoria, and the rank of constable applied to all employees in the SAS in South Australia, the product of a gender bias evaluation of work “performed by women for women”. PFA-WAC - in the paper presented at its 2001 conference - considered the work of Clare Burton in general perceptions of both men and women when assessing work done by males and females. The examples in Victoria and South Australia raise issues of “women’s roles” in policing (and it is useful to add as “customers” of police services) and the value of worth the organization attributes to those roles.

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