Archiving the Records of the National Pay Equity Coalition (NPEC), 1988–2011

We decided to embark on our almost-completed project of archiving the records of the National Pay Equity Coalition (NPEC) for two reasons. First, women activists campaigning for pay equity seemed to be in danger of reinventing the wheel. So much of what we had researched and written about was still vitally relevant but was invisible because it had been produced before the digital era. We needed to get that information out there.

Second, we realised that if we did not archive our work then it officially did not exist. As older radicals take ill and die, their work disappears when the nephew finds it in the shed and hires a skip.

So, the project has had two foci: to digitise our important formal submissions and educative leaflets; and to archive our papers.

The National Pay Equity Coalition (NPEC) was active from 1988 to 2011. It originated out of the 1987 Socialist Feminist Conference in Sydney and its immediate task was a submission to the 1988 National Wage Case. Its membership was mainly NSW-based but its focus was Australia wide. Some of its members had worked together previously in other groups dealing with women’s employment issues, such as the Women’s Employment Action Campaign (WEAC), Campaign of Action for Equal pay (CAEP), Women’s Employment Rights Centre (WERC), and the Campaign against Discrimination (CAD).

The objective of NPEC was to obtain wage justice for Australian women. The impetus was a recognition that two Australian equal pay milestones – equal pay for equal work (1969) and equal pay for work of equal value (1972–74) – had still not delivered pay equity by 1988. Although most of NPEC’s work focused on the undervaluation of the work done by women, it also focused on other issues pertinent to women’s incomes, such as paid parental leave, childcare, salary sacrificing, access to over-award payments, compulsory superannuation, and enterprise bargaining.

Figure 1.

National Pay Equity Coalition, December 2012

Back Row: Meg Smith, Kathryn Freytag, Anita De Vos, Elizabeth Fletcher, Martina Nightingale, Danny Blackman, Fran Hayes, Di Fruin, Gail Gregory, Suzanne Jamieson

Front Row: Juliet Richter, Meredith Burgmann, Philippa Hall, Suzanne Hammond

Photo courtesy of Meredith Burgmann

NPEC operated under Federal Industrial Relations/Workplace Relations Ministers Willis, Cook, Brereton, Reith, Andrews, Hockey, Gillard and Crean. While most of these ministers came and went without major disruption, Peter Reith provided NPEC with some particular challenges because of the extreme changes the Government at that time wanted to make to the industrial relations system. From time to time, NPEC also worked on state-based issues within New South Wales (NSW).

Members and Their Background

NPEC was a small fluctuating group of busy women – academics, public servants, union office-bearers, a union educator, industrial relations consultants, and Meredith Burgmann, an academic unionist who became a Labor politician while an active member of NPEC. Other members included Danny Blackman, Clare Burton, Anita Devos, Elizabeth Fletcher, Kathryn Freytag, Dianne Fruin, Jill Gientzotis, Philippa Hall, Suzanne Hammond, Fran Hayes, Suzanne Jamieson, Anne Junor, Kathy McDermott, Martina Nightingale, Felicity Rafferty, Juliet Richter and Meg Smith. Many other women contributed to the group throughout its history. Spin-off groups operated in Western Australia, Queensland and the ACT and worked intensively on issues in their own jurisdiction. NPEC liaised with these groups. The WA group lobbied successfully for their state Pay Equity Unit and the Queensland group was involved with the Queensland Pay Equity Inquiry and the important Dental Therapists’ Case.

Union backgrounds were a common thread – many members were, or had been, honorary union office-bearers, full-time officials, specialist officers, or seasoned activists. Our NPEC work was combined with childcare, paid work, elder care, and study commitments. PhDs were completed, babies were born and raised and deep and lasting friendships were formed during the life of NPEC. Our office was Meredith’s dining room and many of our posters, flyers and submissions carry her Glebe address. We met there for over 20...