Intenational Labour Organization
SEAPAT
South-East Asia and the Pacific Multidisciplinary Advisory Team

Unit 2: Gender issues in the world of work

Labour market gender issues by country

Fiji

ILO/UNDP TSS1 Report Fiji: Towards Equality and Protection for Women Workers in the Formal Sector

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Scope of the Study

The purpose of this study is to examine and assess the position of women workers in formal sector paid employment in Fiji in order to:

• determine the key barriers to women's equal participation in paid employment in the formal sector
• make policy recommendations designed to improve the position of women and increase their contribution to overall economic activity

• first, the availability of data facilitates consideration of formal sector issues
• second, formal sector activity is (by definition) within the direct realm of government policy

• Relative to their share of the population, women are substantially under represented in formal sector employment. When women are employed in the formal sector, they are concentrated in the lower paying jobs. Although there does appear to be some improvement in the employment of women in recent decades there is little doubt that serious problems persist.
• Estimates made in the report indicate that women accounted for about 30 per cent of total paid employment in 1994. Government and manufacturing account for close to two-thirds of the women in the paid labor force. Also, there is a considerable number of women employed in the tourist industry, wholesale and retail trade, and in the financial sector.
• Women employed in these diverse sectors, however, tend to be confined in certain types of jobs. In government service, women are concentrated in lower level clerical jobs, nursing and the lower echelons of teaching; there are relatively few women in higher level government jobs. In manufacturing, women are highly concentrated in garment production, mostly in very poorly paid positions. Similarly, in private sector service activities - in finance as in the tourist sector - the jobs held by women tend to be those with lower pay, less skill, less authority, and less security.
• The unequal position of women in the Fiji economy stands in contrast to their relatively equal formal position in the basic levels of the educational system. At both the primary and secondary levels, there are no substantial differences in the overall enrollments of boys and girls. Also, gender disparities in enrollments at the University of the South Pacific are not large.
• Basic education aside, there appears to be a complex set of factors at work in determining women's subordinate position in the Fiji economy. Direct discrimination in hiring and promotion undoubtedly plays a role. Also, women enroll at a much lower rate than men in the training programmes that lead to higher positions in the formal sector and women who do obtain such training prepare for a narrow range of work activities.
• Discrimination and the other factors that channel men and women into different levels of the formal sector labour force, moreover, reflect prevailing beliefs embodied in attitudes about the differences between the appropriate social, political and economic roles for men and women. Also, aside from direct discrimination and male actions, many women themselves make choices about their lives that help to maintain the economic differences between themselves and men.
• There has been growing recognition within the Fiji Government of the problems facing women. In 1987, the Government established the Department of Women and Culture that is now located in the Ministry of Education, Women and Culture, Science and Technology. The Department monitors improvements in the status of women and encourages the development of policies and programmes that would address the needs of women. Also, the Annual Budget document includes a section on "Women in Development", and a commitment "to ensure that gender concerns are addressed in all aspects of our policies and plans".
• The Government's formal commitments notwithstanding, the locus of activity directed towards advancing the position of women seems to rest largely in organizations and activities outside government.

• The two broad sectors accounting for the great majority of women's employment are manufacturing and government, community and personal services. Within manufacturing, garment production accounts for perhaps three-quarters of female employment. Government accounts for some 85 per cent of total employment in the government, community and personal services sector and more than 90 per cent of the employment of women in this sector.
• Although there are a large number of women employed in government, they tend to be highly concentrated, both by level and occupation. While women make up only 8 per cent of the upper level civil servants and 21 per cent of the middle level, they are 49 per cent of the lower level. Another way to look at the data is to note that among men the ratio of those in the lower level to those in the upper and middle levels is 3.75 to 1; for women, the same ratio is 15 to 1.
• The expansion of the garment industry in recent years has created a substantial increase of opportunities for women in paid employment. At the same time, the industry has come under substantial criticism for the relatively low wages that are paid to women garment workers. According to the Garment Industry Wages Council Order, which came into effect in October 1993, the minimum wage for unskilled workers in the garment industry is only 94 cents per hour, well below that in other industries, including other parts of manufacturing.
• The garment industry involves a diverse set of firms, both foreign-owned and Fiji-owned. Some are fairly large, at least by Fiji's standards, and others are small enterprises. Labour relations practices undoubtedly vary among them. Yet virtually all are heavily dependent on relatively low paid female labour and highly susceptible to changes in the international economic market. The major challenge is how to preserve the expansion of job opportunities that has come with the growth of the industry and improve the wages and conditions of work that go with these jobs.
• While the garment industry stands in a special position, other manufacturing activity is also important in affecting the position of women in the Fiji formal sector. The fish canning industry, in particular, stands out as an employer of a large number of women, perhaps close to 1,000. As in garments, wages are relatively low and concerns have been raised about the working conditions of women in the industry.
• The differences that exist in the structure of men's and women's employment in Fiji have clear roots in the country's training programmes. Girls and boys go through primary and secondary education at roughly the same rate. Gender disparities in the University of the South Pacific do not appear to be large. Still, overall participation in training is almost as imbalanced in favour of males as formal sector employment; and women are highly concentrated in so-called "female" training programmes, as they are in so-called "female" job categories.
• Perceptions and attitudes about women and gender relations are closely connected to more concrete factors that limit women's participation and advancement in the formal sector. One of these is certainly the responsibility that women have for raising children and maintaining a family. These responsibilities can seriously curtail their ability to participate in or advance within the formal sector. It is hardly necessary to state, except for emphasis, that caring for the "dependent" parts of the population is commonly perceived as "women's work".
• The limited number of women in higher level formal sector positions tends to discourage young women from seeking the training that would qualify them for those positions. Yet, the reverse is also true: as women enter higher level jobs and the gender patterns of employment are altered, so too are the attitudes and practices that have generated and preserved the patterns of employment.

While the enactment and enforcement of laws and the legal process are only one aspect of a multi-faceted approach to enhance the full integration of women in economic life, they offer an important means of protection against discriminatory employment practices and of guaranteeing fundamental women workers' rights.

Fiji has ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), notwithstanding the reservations made on the changes of customs (Article 5 (a)) and on the laws related to the citizenship of Fiji (Article 9). Of particular relevance is Article 11 of the CEDAW, which explicitly deals with women's employment.

Article 18 of the Constitution allows the enactment of laws or programmes or activities that have the purpose of ameliorating the conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, sex, place of origin, political opinions, colour, religion or creed. This gives the Government the opportunity to introduce affirmative action programmes promoting equality of opportunities and treatment in employment.

Key issues for debate regarding women's legal employment status relate to wage discrimination, poor working conditions in sectors where women predominate, weaknesses in maternity protection and insufficient support for workers with family responsibilities. These anomalies in Fiji's employment legislation are complemented by particular problems outside the legal framework, which directly or indirectly affect women's opportunities and treatment in the labour market.

The viability and effectiveness of the industrial relations system will have an important impact on the extent to which specific women's concerns will be on the collective bargaining agenda. Sufficient representation and participation of women in the industrial relations systems is of paramount importance to discuss employment issues which are of concern to all workers.

Provisions protecting women from discriminatory treatment are most useful when the ability exists to enforce them. While the new Health and Safety at Work Act will certainly improve and strengthen the role of the labour inspectorate, other problems related to effective law enforcement such as the high litigation costs and the lack of a gender responsive grievance machinery also need to be addressed.

Policy Proposals

The proposals put forward in this report are limited in their scope in that they are restricted to issues that:

• have been analysed
• are within the policy framework accepted by the Fiji government
• in so far as possible do not benefit women at the expense of men
• do not require large amounts of new resources

• A first and necessary step to improve the socio-economic position of women in Fiji will be institutional capacity building-
• strengthening the national machinery on the advancement of women
• building up capacity, particularly within
• the Ministry for Labour and Industrial Relations
• the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning
• the Ministry of Education
• the Department of Women and Culture
to undertake gender responsive analysis and planning. Effective policy formulation and implementation requires institutional strengthening in terms of both human and financial resources and technical capabilities, at the national, local and grassroots level as well as the development of mechanisms for systematic linkages and coordination among the relevant institutions.
• A concrete exercise to strengthen the capacity on gender analysis and planning within the Ministry of Labour and Industrial Relations is to pilot test the possibility of submitting one or two major policies or programmes in the field of labour and employment to a Gender Impact Assessment (GIA). Chapter Two identifies focal policy areas which could be used in choosing a programme or policy appropriate for GIA piloting.
• A meaningful GIA would be more than a declaration of gender related goals but would involve an analysis of the project's or policy's gender consequences, examining indirect as well as direct impacts. Gender issues are intertwined with virtually every aspect of policy, but the impacts are often complex and indirect. Accordingly, explicit examination of those impacts, is necessary in order that the government's role in finding solutions to gender problems can be fully developed.
• The Fiji Government, in particular the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, should undertake a re-examination of central aspects of its overall economic development strategy with the purpose of identifying its connections to gender issues. The development strategy should be subjected to the same sort of gender impact assessment that has been proposed above.
• An issue of particular importance is the effort to reduce the overall size of government. It is particularly important to establish the gender impacts that are likely to occur from this effort. Because government employment is such an important category of women's formal sector employment and because they are so concentrated in the lower levels of government employment, women are likely to be especially adversely affected by this aspect of development strategy.
• The suggestion that Fiji's development strategy be re-examined in terms of its relations to gender issues is a proposal about how development strategy should be formulated; it is not a proposal as to what the strategy should be. The design of development strategy depends upon many considerations, and issues of gender are only are part of a larger foundation on which strategic decisions are based. Following the suggestions offered here, the Government would be in a better position to recognise the complex relationship between its overall development strategy and gender. It would then be possible to adjust or reformulate the policy to make it more effective, more workable and more clearly in the interests of all the country's people.
• The Ministry of Labour and Industrial Relations, in consultation with the social partners, should undertake a comprehensive programme to improve wages and working conditions in garment production. The programme should be closely connected with an effort to push the industry towards greater productivity, focussed "upstream" marketing, and a more secure international position.
• The most favourable route of change for the industry is in the direction of a more focussed approach to the market, with greater emphasis on high quality, design and quick response. Moving garment firms' strategies in this direction, however, will require the development of a more highly skilled workforce, investment in new equipment, and improved infrastructure and transport facilities.
• In order to ensure greater gender equality in training programmes, the Ministry of Labour and Industrial Relations, in coordination with the Ministry of Education and the Fiji National Training Council, should consider ways in which existing training-related tax can be used to enhance women's participation in private sector training programmes.
• In order to ensure the development of a national employment policy that equally addresses the needs of both women and men in Fiji, the Ministry of Labour and Industrial Relations and the Public Service Commission (for the public sector), in consultation with the social partners and relevant NGOs, should consider the development of equal opportunity procedures in government and private sector sponsored training programmes and employment and promotion structures. Generally , EEO policies could cover a whole range of issues from recruitment practices, promotion, retrenchment and retirement, leave arrangements, payment systems, conditions of employment such as training, occupational safety and health, sexual harassment, workers with family responsibilities and maternity protection, to collective bargaining processes and participation in decision making. The Ministry of Labour and Industrial Relations, in coordination with the Department of Women and Culture, should be responsible for managing the programme.

• The Government, in view of its commitment to the promotion of equality and advancement of women, should consider ratifying the ILO Conventions relevant to women, especially Convention 111 on Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) and Convention 100 on Equal Remuneration, and ensuring that national legislation is in compliance with these ILO standards.
• The Ministry of Labour and Industrial Relations, in consultation with the employers' and workers' organizations, should undertake a review of the employment legislation in light of especially Article 11 of the CEDAW and basic ILO Conventions relevant to women workers. The ratification of the CEDAW provides the basis for future legislative changes. Given the existing commitment of the Department of Women and Culture to review legislation with a view to safeguarding the interests of women, consideration should be given to adopt an explicit prohibition against direct and indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex, pregnancy, marital status, child birth and family responsibilities in respect of hiring, terms and conditions of work, training and education, promotion and termination.
• In light of objective and up-to-date scientific evidence of real risk to men and women, a clear focus should be placed on the revision of labour standards that set special protective measures for women workers. However, any revision of Fiji's employment legislation should be done against the background of a growing consensus that women should be protected on the same basis and the same standards as men. In addition, it is important that legislation which protects women's reproductive and maternal role should not be considered as incompatible with equal opportunities, but rather as essential to the realization of equal opportunities for men and women.
• It is desirable that the chapter in the Employment Act dealing with maternity protection be amended in accordance with the ILO principles on maternity protection. These include the provisions regarding maternity leave and pay and protection against unfair dismissal. In addition, the costs of maternity protection should be borne by public funds or a system of insurance, rather than directly by the employer. Any provision obliging employers to pay maternity benefits will directly adversely affect women's employment. Appropriate cost-sharing arrangements need to be worked out among the Government, the employers and the workers. Coverage of maternity benefits under the National Provident Fund needs to be examined. At the same time, efforts should be made to look at other options for developing a more comprehensive insurance scheme in Fiji that includes coverage of maternity benefits. It is important that special attention is given in this regard to the situation of women in casual and temporary employment.
• The gender bias in wages council orders should be eliminated and the provision of paid sick leave and paid public holidays should be stipulated in the Employment Act in order to provide equality for all workers. The provisions in the National Provident Fund Act and the Public Orders that adversely affect women's employment because of their marital status should be reviewed.
• The Government, in consultation with the social partners, should develop a policy to enable workers with family responsibilities to engage in employment without facing discrimination. This should include affordable child care facilities, and possibilities for part-time work and flexible working hours, provided that these corresponds to women's needs and that adequate safeguards for job security and terms and conditions of work are included.
• In collaboration with the employers' and workers' organisations and relevant NGOs concerned with women and gender issues, the Ministry of Labour and Industrial Relations should strengthen the enforcement of women workers' rights and develop special action programmes for women workers aimed at improving the working environment, occupational safety and health, working conditions and welfare facilities. There is also a need to review the occupational diseases schedule, particularly taking into account the risk of occupational diseases in the newly emerging sectors employing large numbers of women.
• Training and awareness raising on women workers' rights need to be promoted and developed among women workers. Women need to know how to insist on their rights, to effectively deal with sexual harassment and ensure that they are not discriminated against over promotion. The Government, in consultation with the social partners and relevant non-governmental organisations, should consider the drafting of legislation that prohibits sexual harassment.
• The Department of Women and Culture-in collaboration with the relevant Ministries, particularly the Ministry of Labour and Industrial Relations-should widely organize gender awareness raising for:
• relevant government officials
• employers' and workers' organizations
• labour court officials and lawyers
• members of the Labour Advisory Board
• the Labour Inspectorate
• the newly established Safety and Health Committees
• the Law Reform Commission
Employers' and workers' organizations should sensitize their own officers and members to address gender issues and encourage women to participate in all their activities.
• Effective monitoring of women's employment and formulating policies and recommendations for reform largely depends on the specific available data. Since these data are generally lacking, it is important to build the capacity for systematic sex- disaggregated labour data gathering.
• There is a clear need for more detailed research on:
• the enforcement of the employment legislation
• the impact of its non-compliance on women workers
• the impact of issues outside the legislative framework covering employment matters
• the effectiveness of different strategies for altering perceptions and attitudes towards women in employment
More specifically, it would be desirable to undertake more action-oriented research on the disadvantaged position of workers in domestic service, which is also an important source of regular employment in Fiji.
• As an important first step, the Government might consider launching a pilot equal opportunity/ affirmative action programme to enable in-depth analysis of the ways employment practices and practices in training and education directly or indirectly discriminate against women, and permit the development of legislative and other measures to eliminate such practices and close the gap between women and men in employment. The pilot programme should be managed by the Ministry of Labour and Industrial Relations, in coordination with the Department of Women and Culture, and involve workers' and employers' organisations and relevant non-governmental organisations concerned with gender and women's issues.
• The equal opportunity/affirmative action programme should be closely related to the development of general EEO policies mentioned in the first set of recommendations of this report. As a first but crucial step, the Ministry of Labour and Industrial Relations should make a clear statement on how it intends to implement the commitments made at the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995.

For further information, please contact the South-East Asia and the Pacific Multidisciplinary
Advisory Team (SEAPAT) at Tel: +63.2.815.2354 or Fax: +63.2.812.6143
E-mail: seapat@ilo.org