Outrage, shock and fury as Government halts pay equity claims

NZNO — Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa has at least 10 pay equity claims in play across aged care, primary health, hospice, Plunket, community health and laboratories. A pay equity claim is when a group of workers, primarily women, seek financial settlement for historic underpayment on basis of gender.

‘This is a blatant and shameful attack on women.’

Despite years of work in some cases, most would now have to start all over again — and promised reviews of existing claims would be wiped.

“It’s absolutely disgusting,” long-time  NZNO aged-care worker Marianne Bishop told Kaitiaki. “It’s going to have a huge impact — it’s going to make it harder to recruit and retain staff in an area where it’s already hard.”

“Why would you want to work hard in aged care, when you can get the same amount at a supermarket or McDonalds?”

‘What choice do we have? We show up and fight.’

NZNO chief executive Paul Goulter described it as an attack on long-underpaid female workers.

“This is a blatant and shameful attack on women,” said Goulter, adding that it would only widen the pay gap between men and women.

Primary health and aged-care nurses in particular now face a major setback in their pay equity claims. Having to start claims afresh is a blow to all members with claims, but particularly Plunket and hospice workers whose claims were almost complete, he said.

Van Velden said changes to the Equal Pay Act in 2020 by the Labour-led Government had “created problems” allowing claims to be raised without enough evidence.

This had so far cost the Crown $1.78 billion — costs which would now “significantly reduce”, said Van Velden, who is the ACT Party deputy leader.

The Government would now be raising the claim threshold, so tasks would have had to have been performed by mainly women for at least 10 years and by a workforce that was at least 70 per cent female, Van Velden said.

‘Today is an absolutely shameful day.’

After the urgent amendments — introduced today — passed, current claims would be discontinued but new claims could be raised “if they meet the new requirements”.

‘Shame, shame, shame’ chanted at Parliament

Workers, women, unions including NZNO and left-wing political parties, turned on a stunning and spontaneous display of outrage at Parliament just hours after the announcement.

Stephanie Mills, national secretary of the primary teachers’ union NZEI — which represents teacher aides —  told an angry 300-plus crowd it was the “start of a war, not just on women, but on children and families.

“What choice do we have? We show up and fight.”

Council of Trade Unions national secretary Melissa Ansell-Bridges said its members were “so upset that this Government does not value its workers and women.

“Today is an absolutely shameful day,” she said as the crowd responded: “Shame, shame, shame”.

Māori, Pasifika and disabled women bore the brunt of the pay injustice, Ansell-Bridges said.

E tū president Muriel Tunoho said the move was “disastrous” and a “massive step backwards.

“Governments come and go but unions and workers will always be here!”

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson, who only recently returned to politics after breast cancer treatment, promised to return women their right to equal pay — “one of the simplest things to pledge, if I’m honest”.

In 2017, thousands of care and support workers represented by three unions — NZNO, PSA and E tū — achieved an historic $2 billion pay equity settlement in 2017 for 55,000-plus workers in aged residential care, disability and home care support sectors. However, it lapsed in 2022 and a new claim has since been raised.