Today is International Women’s Day. As a union with majority female membership, delivering rights and conditions that support working women is always a key priority.

The CPSU has achieved significant progress for women on a range of working rights. Through service wide bargaining in the Australian Public Service, our union has recently delivered improvements to pay and conditions that will significantly improve the working lives of women in the APS:

• Improved paid parental leave rights will see new parents able to take more time off, structured in a way that works for them, their family and their career. They will also see the work of caring for a new baby better able to be shared between parents.
• Industry leading flexible work and working from home rights will allow people with caring responsibilities (breastfeeding, school pick up and drop off, caring for elderly parents) and people with health issues or demands, to better structure their working pattern and location.
• Uncapped and paid family and domestic violence leave, while also protecting an employee’s confidentiality.

These conditions, hard fought for by union members, will allow more women to remain in the workforce where these situations would have otherwise prevented, delayed or reduced their participation.

Union members in ACT Government have also seen significant progress through bargaining, winning superannuation on unpaid parental leave of up to 24 months.

But the job is not done. There is always more that we can do, and our union will continue to work for outcomes that deliver gender equity in the workplace and beyond.