Greens councillor Jill Merrin will call for gender equality at Wollongong City Council, after new figures showed the proportion of women in the organisation's workforce has dropped from 47 per cent to 39 per cent over the past five years.
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In a notice of motion at Monday night's meeting, Cr Merrin will ask her fellow councillors to support a review of the council's gender equity policies, as well as a target forcing 40 per cent of management positions to be filled by women by 2018.
According to council figures the proportion of women in senior management or middle management positions has decreased, from 32 per cent in 2010 to 27 per cent in December 2014.
That's just 14 out of 52 positions, while none of the council's four executive positions are held by women.
Cr Merrin said her push for change was prompted by the Australian Local Government Women's Association (ALGWA) NSW conference in April, which Wollongong is hosting.
Additionally, she said it was becoming increasingly accepted by big business and both side of politics that gender equality was an important part of an organisation's success.
Cr Merrin tried to improve the council's gender balance in 2012 by urging it to apply to ALGWA for a higher level of gender equity accreditation.
However, she said none of the resolutions councillors endorsed had been acted upon by council staff.
"I don't want to have to argue the case for gender equality again, the council says it's going to do that and we haven't done it," Cr Merrin said.
"In fact, we haven't taken any action at all over the last three years and in the meantime our figures show we've slid backwards in the numbers of women in senior management," she said.
Also in 2012, Cr Merrin failed to convince councillors to support a target for the number of female staff employed by the council. She said the declining number of managers at Wollongong council showed it was now clear targets were the only way to improve the council's gender equity.
"It's becoming quite clear to me that the major political parties are starting to recognise that you need targets, and big business is surprisingly saying the same thing," she said.
"If you can't measure it, you can't achieve it, so I want to see a clear target in place and I want that to be part of the general manager's key performance indicators.
"This is such a major issue that has had such a lot of recognition that it needs to go right to the top, because what we've done as an employer has failed in the last three years."
kmcilwain@fairfaxmedia.com.au
