Singh admits public sector imbalance
Friday, March 10, 2014/Fiji Times
THERE is still an imbalance in gender distribution in Fiji’s public service with men holding dominating senior executive grades.
Fiji Public Service Association general secretary Rajeshwar Singh said at the end of January this year, the breakdown in number of men and women in the service saw 52.2 per cent males and 47.8 per cent females.
“There is only an overall gap of 4.4 per cent although men dominate, by quite a big margin, in senior executive grade of the service in comparison,” he said
“Perhaps the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policy of the Government needs a shot in the arm to rationalise and maintain equal distribution of positions at all grades of the service,” said Mr Singh.
“Out of the 23 ministry chief executive officers, only two are women and the percentage gap is a whopping 82.6 per cent.
“This disparity needs to be corrected to bring in gender balance in the civil service,” he said.
“The majority of women in the public service are employed in the education and health sector. Nurses make up the second largest number but their low pay reflects the disparity in pay equity for women in the health sector.”
Mr Singh said the Government shouldn’t just concentrate on equalising employment but commit itself to valuing the contribution of women in the paid work force.
He said undervaluing the work of nurses in the health sector was a serious issue needing to be addressed.
He said unfavourable work conditions resulted in the migration of nurses to developed countries like Australia and New Zealand.
He said last year alone, 100 nurses resigned to work overseas because of better pay and work conditions and employment opportunities for their spouses and their families.
Mr Singh didn’t leave out the private sector, labelling its treatment of women as ‘notorious’, cited the opposition by employers in the tourism and garment sectors to the Employee Relations Bill as examples.
He said employers in the two industries opposed the provision of full paid maternity leave and even went to the extent of threatening to stop recruiting female workers.
“They said they would be forced to institute gender discrimination in favour of employment of male workers.”
Mr Singh said a recent survey in the garment industry showed employers wouldn’t feel the pinch in monetary terms if they paid full maternity leave.
“Maternity protection issue has been the forefront of the trade union agenda and this would continue until such time our women members are set free from employment inequities.”
He said unions needed women to retain industrial strength and one of the campaign slogans was ‘strong unions need women’.
