Women are increasingly being exposed to gig-economy-style conditions and the ‘uberisation’ of their roles, as they make up the bulk of the part-time workforce. The United Workers Union has just surveyed 1200 female part-time employees across industries, with the findings revealing stark realities that must be considered this International Women’s Day.
National President of the United Workers Union, Jo Scholfield, shares more on the findings below .
Across Australia, millions of part time workers – most of them women – are holding together a system that was meant to support them, not place them under strain. What was sold as a pathway for balance has become a fault line of exploitation. F
The findings of our new survey Women in part-time work: the slide towards an Uber economy highlight the worst of this new reality: workers rostered on “zero hours contracts” to work the bare minimum, stretched financially, juggling caring responsibilities, and being forced to avoid making plans in their time off in the hope that much-needed hours become available to boost their low pay.
The survey, conducted in February this year, received more than 1200 responses from women working part time across multiple industries.
The findings show that part-time female workers in caring professions and hospitality are reporting impacts on their roles from “just-in-time” gig-economy characteristics. Further, the research showed that part-time female workers are experiencing gig economy-style demands with little flexibility or financial reward.
The “Uber-isation” of part-time workers’ jobs revealed in the survey is an unsettling story of unpredictable employment contracts with days, times and hours that are all over the place.
It’s a chaotic picture: more than one in five do not have consistent hours or days from week-to-week or from one roster cycle to the next. This figure jumps to 68% of hospitality workers and 60% of in-home aged care workers.
Similar signs of exploitation and uncertainty in the care and disability support sectors can be seen with workers reporting regular unexpected shift changes at well above the average rate of 22%. Regular unexpected shifts are experienced by 79% of in-home aged care workers, 35% of disability support workers and 34% of early childhood educators.
Half of all respondents regularly work additional hours, and more than one-third do so on a weekly basis. Yet in a sign of the poor rewards for their flexibility, the overwhelming majority – a startling 70% – are not paid overtime for additional hours worked.
Saying no, even when changes don’t suit a worker’s personal circumstances, is not an option for a third of those surveyed. Their reluctance is driven by fear that pushing back will mean fewer hours, poorer shifts or being overlooked in the future. This anxiety is especially acute in frontline sectors already stretched thin by chronic understaffing.
Women often choose part time work due to the disproportionate share of caring responsibilities they carry. This was the case for 62% of the women who responded to the survey. More than half of these carers were over the age of 55. In theory, part-time work allowed these women to balance time with family, helping with grandchildren and school drop-offs. But this gets challenging when shifts change, workloads increase and flexible work arrangements operate in one direction. As one respondent noted, flexibility “just means that I end up … working longer hours”.
Coordinating caring responsibilities when workers had no set days or hours was described as “hard” through to “impossible”. Finding time to attend medical appointments and balancing individual health needs when workers are denied leave and much-needed breaks were further challenges.
The other story that came through is that of workers who benefited from clear rights under the enterprise agreements they negotiated. This group was more likely to have employment contracts that set out the days, times and hours of work each week. When there was a request to change the pattern or work, or to pick up additional hours, they said they had the confidence to say no to requests that did not meet their needs.
More than 4.5 million workers currently work part-time, the majority of them women, representing roughly one-third of the workforce. The survey results suggest that current arrangements are failing millions of women, who are being left to paper over the cracks in a system originally intended to support their work-life balance.
Part time work should not be a two-tier system of rights and certainty for some, and exploitation for others. The “Uber-isation” of part-time work, which is falling predominantly on women, is not the way things should be. There is an urgent need to narrow the widening gap to ensure all women have the security, certainty, and choice they need.