The PSA CPSU NSW is proud to celebrate International Women’s Day.
International Women’s Day is also about the celebration of women worldwide and the promotion of economic empowerment, gender equality and basic human rights.
This day gives us a chance to reflect on the role unions have played in the fight for women’s rights and gender equality. Your union, the PSA CPSU NSW, is a trailblazer for women’s rights in the workplace. It has long fought for equal pay, equal access to job opportunities, paid parental leave and job security, flexible work hours, family and community service leave, lactation breaks, and more recently 20 days’ paid domestic violence leave as well as significant improvements to paid parental leave entitlements.
International Woman’s Day also encourages us to come together and consider the battles that still need to be fought. Thanks to fights by your union, the 7.2 per cent gender pay gap in the NSW public sector is much lower than the Australian average of 21.1 per cent. However, this disparity in the NSW public sector has increased over the past three years and is the highest it has been in a decade. Women still retire with far lower superannuation balances than men. We have workplaces that are still unsafe for many women, with high levels of exposure to sexual harassment. We need to fight to change the fact that women and children experience domestic violence at far greater levels than men. We need to address the fact women more often carry the burden of caring responsibilities and need job security, and better access to flexible work. We are also fighting for reproductive leave for women.
