The overlap of the federal sex discrimination and industrial relations jurisdictions: intersections and demarcations in conciliation

The jurisdictional overlap created between federal industrial relations and sex discrimination law from the late 1980s promised to provide working women with greater scope to pursue claims of sex discrimination. Drawing on an analysis of conciliation processes and outcomes, the paper examines the impact of this jurisdictional overlap on the external management of gendered workplace grievances in the Australian banking industry. The paper argues that the intersection of industrial relations and sex discrimination law provides a space for challenges to sex discrimination in employment from different vantage points. However, a practical and symbolic divide between two very different jurisdictions remains. This divide shapes conciliation outcomes and their workplace ramifications and means that the choices offered by the jurisdictional overlap are constrained ones.