In Tauranga NZNO members were giving out partial cupcakes to drive the message home this Working Women’s Week.
“We are giving away cupcakes with 20 to 30 per cent cut out of them, to demonstrate that we all do similar work, but on pay day some get a full cupcake and others 80 per cent,” one worker said.
“Everyone deserves a full cupcake — pay equity means filling the gaps, so it’s fair for all.”
For Pacific women, the overall pay gap with men is the largest at 15.8 per cent; wāhine Māori are paid 12 per cent less and women generally five per cent less.
Last year the Government ripped away $12.8 billion worth of pay equity claims from women-led workforces including hospice and Plunket workers — just weeks away from being filed — as well as care and support workers. In February, a people’s select committee of former MPs slammed the move as secretive and horrendous.
In Wellington, hospice nurse Anna Garton has dyed her hair purple in readiness.
Garton — who spoke of her “hope and excitement” after the people’s select committee slammed the Government’s actions — said it was crucial nurses and kaiāwhina stand up together on Working Women’s Week, to make sure their work was “visible, valued and recognised”.
“It’s really important to continue the hard mahi done by our women before us, and to continue to support our current and future nursing workforce.”
Garton said she wanted people to view nursing as a rewarding and fulfilling profession — and to see that nurses and health workers were valued by Government and their communities. That would ensure a strong future workforce, she said.
‘Women’s work is just as important as the work that men do.’
“We all know what it is like to work hard, to worry about our patients, their care and their outcomes, and balancing the pressures that come with working in such a constrained health care system — we are doing an awesome job showing up, every day . . . for ourselves, and the people we work with.”
At Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital, NZNO delegate Liandra Conradie said members had been going hard on the purple and were keen to stand up for what was right.
“We’re standing up to ensure we get what we deserve and ensure we don’t revert back to when women got less, and were viewed as less” she told Kaitiaki.
“Women’s work is just as important as the work that men do.”
At Porirua’s Kenepuru Hospital, patients came out to support members preparing to go purple, one saying she believed nurses should be paid more.
At Auckland’s Greenlane Hospital, a famous purple dinosaur was providing inspiration for nurses and kaiāwhina decorating their workplace.
NZNO delegate Farah Tan said staff had got the purple memo and added a fun twist.
“We just added a Barney [the purple dinosaur] theme and created some posters,” Tan told Kaitiaki.
‘Everyone deserves a full cupcake — pay equity means filling the gaps, so it’s fair for all.’
In Christchurch, NZNO members were also taking a light-hearted approach while on a renewed visibility strike, with balloons, corflute signs and handmade t-shirts.
Members on a visibility strike do not need to comply with their workplace’s uniform policies — but other Te Whatu Ora members do, NZNO has advised.
Christchurch registered nurse (RN) and delegate Courtney Milne said the focus was celebratory and fun and patient response had been really positive.
Milne — who made her own screen-printed safe staffing t-shirts for everyone (“I’m frugal and a little bit thrifty”) — said they were an “easy in” to a kōrero with patients.
“We had so many patients commenting on our t-shirts when I had one saying ‘safe staffing saves lives, not enough staff’,” she said. “Patients got talking and said ‘we’re so behind you’.”
The impact of ongoing staff shortages were felt “every shift”, including serious injuries to patients who were not supervised adequately, Milne said.
A full schedule of events to mark Working Women’s Week in the lead up to International Women’s Day can be found here.
A pay equity rally at Parliament postponed this week due to bad weather is now being held on Monday at 12-12.30.
