GetUp Equal Pay Petition

[emilykate]

Yes, it's unfair. Yes, it's not legal to pay a man more than a women for doing a comparable job. Yes, it still happens. Yes, it's disgraceful!

You can be damned sure we're not in a post-Feminist world when their still exists a frightful pay gap between the genders in this country.

The MSA Women's Department will be running events and campaigning to close the gender pay gap in a big way on Equal Pay Day (September 1st), but right now, you can still take action.

Write to your local parliamentary rep (who - female PM or no - is more likely to be a man than a woman, just an aside), write to your newspaper... sign this petition!!

www.getup.org.au/campaign/HowTheOtherHalfEarns&id=307

The link has a rather nifty application where you can jot down your annual salary and it will calculate the annual salary that you'd get if you were a man doing the same job (for example, if you're a woman earning $20,000p.a., you'd get paid another $3,200p.a. if only you were born male) and vice versa.

Try it out!

www.getup.org.au/campaign/HowTheOtherHalfEarns&id=307

[Erica Chan]

Sweet, thanks for posting off this link! Just sent it to all my friends and family whose email I know.

And damn, that pay calculator is startling. And frightening. And anger-inducing.

[emilykate]

Here, here: anger-inducing it definitely is!

To be honest, although being pro-closing the pay gap, I never really thought about how it affected me. Given I'm currently an undergraduate working mostly as a casual worker, I assumed the pay gap wouldn't be all too big just yet. Heh, I was wrong.

It turns out that, if I were doing what I already do - but was a man - I'd earn annually enough extra cash to go have a comfortable holiday somewhere like Byron Bay each year. Or, I'd have that little bit more money to put towards that car which I'll need when I move out of the city next year. (It might help me sleep at night, knowing I don't have to feel like I have to compromise my study by working every possible shift that comes my way!). That c17.5% adds up to a lot!