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Abstract
Using current enterprise agreement data, this paper evaluates outcomes for paid maternity and paternity leave in Australia and considers the presence of 'equality bargaining' in Australia. We find that the incidence of paid maternity leave clauses in bargained agreements is higher than in previous years and is higher still than the incidence of paid paternity leave clauses, although neither is widespread. Further, we note the existence of a new bargaining norm for paid maternity leave of 14 weeks, distinct sectoral patterns in paid maternity and paternity leave clauses and the possible emergence of an equality bargaining agenda. On the eve of the introduction of a national leave paid parental leave scheme, the results presented in this paper provide a benchmark for future comparison and evaluation.
Introduction
Until the Australian government's Mother's Day announcement1 that paid parental leave would be introduced from January 2011 , there was no universal provision of paid maternity or paternity leave in Australia. While the 1 979 Test Case standard of 52 weeks unpaid parental leave had become enshrined in legislation in the 1993 Industrial Relations Reform Act, debate had continued about how best to provide paid maternity leave entitlements to working women. In the absence of a government scheme, as most other advanced countries have had for many years, attention focussed on business case arguments, where the organisation has assessed the benefits of paid maternity leave to outweigh the costs, and enterprise bargaining as the primary mechanisms to deliver such entitlements to female employees. The arguments around business case provision have been widely canvassed (if not thoroughly researched) but there has been less attention to the processes surrounding enterprise bargaining. This empirical gap is all the more surprising given the emergence of a body of work elsewhere addressing the related issues of 'equality bargaining', that is, bargaining over matters which directly relate to women's labour force needs, such as pay equity and paid maternity leave.
The purposes of this paper are twofold: first, to evaluate enterprise bargaining outcomes for paid maternity and paternity leave on the eve of the introduction of the paid parental leave scheme; and second, to consider the presence of 'equality bargaining' in Australia. In this paper we examine the incidence and duration of...