And now today, what's happening...

District Health Board pay equity claims

30 November 2020. Admin and clerical workers in DHBs have been offered a pay equity deal with pay increases of up to $2,500 a year, with more to come. This claim affects nearly 7,000 people across 20 DHBs, 90% of whom are women.

30 June 2020. The PSA, NZ Nurses Organisation and MERAS (representing directly employed midwives) are working together to progress pay equity claims for administration and clerical staff, nurses and midwives employed by the District Health Boards around NZ.

Pay rise for teacher aides

29 May 2020. More than 2,000 teacher aides have been offered a living wage and pay equity deal by the Ministry of Education than will mean pay increases of $4-$6.60 an hour for most. That's an increase from the $21.20 rate per hour to $34.68, which will commence in November but be backdated to February. Teacher aides are funded through the operations grant to schools (rather than directly by the Ministry of Education as teachers are) but this will be based on hours worked and required to be spent on teacher aides (not computers or toilet paper), says NZEI. NZEI is currently working on pay equity claims for under-valued Māori language teachers, Kohanga Reo (Māori language early childhood education) and school administration staff.

Pay rise for early childhood education teachers

11 May 2020. The minimum salary for teachers working in early childhood education centres will rise from currently $45.491-$46,832 to $49,862 on 1 July 2020. This will bring them in line with kindergarten teachers' pay (which is funded directly by the state).

Pay rise for school support staff

30 November 2019. To address the undervaluing of school support staff, kaiārahi and therapist (see claims below), the Ministry of Education will pay the Living Wage rate of $21.15 an hour over 30,000 school staff currently on the Minimum Wage. Those currently paid $21.15 will receive a 3% increase. The pay equity claim for teacher aides was reported to be close to settlement.

Pay equity claims in progress, October 2018

At its conference in October 2019 the CTU presented a review of pay equity claims for female dominated state sector or state-funded work which are at various stages of claim filing, job evaluation or final negotiation:

There is also an Employment Court case being taken under the Equal Pay Act about equal treatment for part-time secondary teachers on matters such as paid preparation time, etc.

Kindergarten teachers get pay parity

On 25 July 2019, NZEI Te Riu Roa kindergarten teachers settled their claim with the Ministry of Education. The main gains were:- Pay parity with primary and secondary school teachers, delivering the same pay increases and unified pay scale that primary teachers accepted in their settlement,- An increase to head teacher and senior teacher pay- A one off payment of $1,500 for NZEI members (pro-rata for part-timers).This equal pay claim back to their 1990s campaign 'Shoe size should shape salaries'.

State Sector pay equity claims as at February 2019

As part of the work of the Education & Workforce Committee on the Equal Pay Amendment Bill, the Ministry for Business Innovation & Employment provided a list of state sector pay equity claims currently in progress.

Oranga Tamariki social workers

On 24 October 2018 Oranga Tamariki-Ministry for Children announced a pay equity settlement with the PSA that will provide an average lift in OT social workers' salaries of 30.6% over two years.

Pay equity settlement for school support workers

On 14 August 2018 NZ Education Institute and the government announced settlement of a pay equity claim for 329 support workers in early childhood and primary schools employed directly by the Ministry of Education to assist young children with severe learning and behavioural challenges. Currently paid between $16.77 and $19.87 an hour, their minimum hourly rate will move to $21.67 with a new top step of $24.73 with 4-9 years' service and $25.70 for 10 or more years' service, as of 1 July.

Preparatory work for this claim was under way when the Pay & Employment Equity Office was disbanded by an incoming government in 2008. CEVEP understands this substantial pay rise was a negotiated outcome rather than an equal pay rate based on gender neutral job evaluations and comparisons with male work under the Equal Pay Act.

CEDAW Committee recommendations

Every four years New Zealand reports on its actions in compliance with the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. The CEDAW Committee's July 2018 recommendations included the following: 24(c) Adopt and enforce the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in a revised employment relations legislation covering both public and private workplaces, including through analytical job classification and evaluation methods and regular pay surveys, and regularly review wages in sectors in which women are concentrated.

Pay equity for mental health carers

On 22 June 2018 the Health Minister announced an estimated 5,000 mental health and addiction support workers will receive the same pay equity rates increases as care and support workers. Backdated to 1 July 2017, the new pay scale will mean increases of $3-$5 dollars an hour, depending on qualifications and experience. This will be an increase of $200 a week for some full-time workers.

Coalition government announced that it would begin formal negotiations to extend the Care and Support Pay Equity Settlement to around 3,800 mental health and addiction support workers.

Pay equity progress, June 2018

NZEI is in discussion with Ministry of Education about job evaluation methods. MoE is reluctant to be first to use Equitable Job Evaluation (developed by the disbanded Pay & Employment Office in 2008) but NZEI says Haye and an SSC tool don't capture the nature of teaching support work. NZEI is now campaigning for support of a pay equity claim for Early Childhood teachers in both public and private employment, and working out how to align a claim for school administration staff with the PSA's admin claim. School librarians and science and technology staff are also interested in making a pay equity claim.

NZNO raised pay equity in their annual bargaining round, and DHB employers have agreed this to an evaluation process over the next three years. NZNO has not formally lodged this claim with the Authority under the Equal Pay Act 1972.

PSA expects an outcome this month from negotiations to extend the Bartlett caregivers pay equity settlement to mental health support workers. Research and job evaluation has been done for Ora Tamariki social workers and enforced by the employer, and equal pay rates are currently being negotiated. PSA is holding membership meetings to back the pay equity claim for DHB administration and clerical workers.

Pay Equity Coalition end-of-year report on pay equity

E Tu and PSA have filed a claim for mental health support workers.

NZEI filed a claim for education support workers in 2016 and is negotiating with the Ministry of Education.

NZNO: The District Health Boards' multi-employer collective agreement includes terms of reference to advance pay equity across all DHBs. The process reflects the SSC/NZCTU agreement for the state sector to use the Joint Working Group Pay Equity Principles.

PPTA has lodged a claim for equal pay (pro-rata non-contact time) for part-time secondary school teachers.

PSA filed a claim for social workers employed by Oranga Tamariki (formerly Child Youth and Family) in 2015. Discussions are ongoing and making progress.

PSA filed an Equal Pay Act claim in 2015 against the State Services Commission in its role under the State Sector Act. Some of this claim was superseded by the Joint Working Group's Pay Equity Principles for predominately female work. Other aspects are being dealt with in a unions/SSC gender pay principles working group which is seeking to agree principles on issues such as parental leave, starting salaries, progression and promotion which contribute to the gender pay gap.

PSA has been meeting DHB advocates Shared Services to discuss PSA's claim for administration/clerical workers. Discussions have adjourned while further historical research is carried out.

Midwives - a new funding model is being negotiated (see below) but a budget bid will be required to fund the large gender pay gap has been identified on the basis of the Pay Equity Principles adopted by government in 2016, and provide adequate remuneration for on-call, urgent call out and travel time. The College of Midwives reports that 'Both community and employed midwives numbers are poor to dire and every DHB tertiary hospital and most secondary services cannot recruit or retain sufficient numbers of midwives to support the primary community midwifery service'.

More pay equity claims, 2017

As at December 2017, NZ Nurses Organisation had raised pay equity for registered nurses, enrolled nurses and health care assistance in wage bargaining with the District Health Boards, who had agreed this would be examined in a separate process. NZNO hopes to compare nurse practitioners (highest qualification) with clinicians and health care assistants with rest home caregivers' new pay rates, then agree on an appropriate pay scale for nurses and enrolled nurses between those two levels.

In October 2017 NZEI had claims lodged for support workers employed directly by the Ministry of Education, and teachers aides and administration staff in schools (funded from operations grants), as well as for special education support workers. They had agreement to negotiate on these using the government's Principles. NZEI was at the early stages of planning for a pay equity claim for early childhood workers. The 1994-1995 'shoe size' campaign for kindergarten teachers gained parity with other teachers with a tertiary qualification, but had not benefited early childhood teachers employed in the private sector, who since 1991 have been largely un-unionised since 1991. NZEI anticipates starting with an awareness-raising and recruitment campaign across the early childhood sector.

In early July 2017, unions E Tu and PSA met with the Ministry of Social Development and Te Oranga Tamariki (Ministry for Vulnerable Children) about the reach and coverage of extending the carers' settlement to vocational and disability support workers. The unions have also filed a separate pay equity claim under the Equal Pay Act for 3,000-4,000 mental health support workers (around 75% female) who were not included in the carers' settlement.

The pay equity claim on behalf of education support workers is being negotiated by NZEI with the Ministry of Education. A timeline is being agreed, with a result expected within months. Up to 15,000 teacher aides will benefit from a settlement, with claims for other support staff to follow NZEI have also started an equal pay campaign for all teachers and workers in the Early Childhood Education sector, which is fragmented across many public and private employers. The aim is to bring unqualified support staff into line with aged care workers, then to bring qualified early childhood teachers working for private employers into line with teachers in state funded kindergartens, which would means pay rises of $2,000 to $9,000 a year. Bringing the groups together on one pay scale is a first crucial step towards pay equity, says NZEI.

Following the recent pay equity settlement on independent midwives' fees, NZNO has filed a pay equity claim behalf of nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants employed by district health boards. (See below for claims as at April 2017.)

Government consults on new legislation

On 20 April 2017, two days after the caregivers' settlement was announced, the government released an 'exposure draft' of a new Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) bill. This will replace the current Equal Pay under which Kristine Bartlett made here successful claim. The government consulted on this draft until 11 May. A final version of this Bill is expected to be introduced in Parliament in mid-July.

It has finally been demonstrated that the current Act can work to deliver equal pay for work of equal value for New Zealand women. The legislation should not be changed unless those changes will clearly work better than the present Act. In CEVEP's view, the government's draft bill will clearly work much worse. See CEVEP's concerns here.

October 2017 - the incoming Labour/NZ First/Greens government dropped National's Bill.

Caregiver's settlement

On 18 April 2017 a settlement of the Terranova case was announced. On 1 July 55,000 care and support workers in aged residential care, disability and home support received a pay rise to between $19 and $23.50,which will rise to between $21.50 and $27 in July 2021. See more here.

Legislation was required to deliver this outcome across multiple employers. CEVEP had concerns that the bill for this was not delivering the agreed settlement but used the legislation itself to restrict carer's right to make further claims or claim back-pay for an 11 year period, which creating precedents for the future. Some changes to the Bill were made before it was enacted - such as a Schedule of negotiated minimum pay rates. Some employers said not all of the higher costs employment (eg Kiwisaver, ACC) were being fully funded.

Pay equity claims as at April 2017

As well negotiations on equal pay for caregivers, there are now several other claims in progress. The Public Service Association has lodged claims under the Equal Pay Act for Child Youth & Family social workers and care and support workers. In November 2016 it was in discussion with the State Services Commission on these claims. It is also considering possible claims for clerical workers employed in hospitals by District Health Boards and for library assistants in local government public libraries. The Tertiary Education Union is considering a claim for library assistants in tertiary institutions

Equal Pay Act claims are also pending in the courts for special education support workers (whose job evaluation assessment was dropped by the incoming government in 2009). On 12 April 2017 the Ministry of Education agreed there is sufficient merit to advance a pay equity claim for education support workers over the next 15 weeks, including assessing the work, looking at comparators and beginning negotiations towards a settlement. This will use the Principles for Equal Pay adopted by government last year. As NZEI say, "Education support workers deserve a speedy result after fighting for more than 10 years for fair pay."

In 2015 the NZ College of Midwives launched legal proceedings against the government alleging that inadequate remuneration in midwives' contracts for services was due to gender discrimination. In August 2016, just before the court date for a judicial review, the Ministry of Health offered mediation. On 5 April 2017 the parties announced a 'funding codesign project' that will be in line with the principle that equal pay has no element of gender-based differentiation and is free of systematic undervaluation, as outlined in the government Principles for Equal Pay.

From 1 July 2017 Lead Maternity Care midwives received a 6% fee increase as an interim measure while a fundamental overhaul of the way community midwives are paid is negotiated. From 1 May, there was also a 2.5% fee increase for community based midwife care through pregnancy, labour and six weeks' post-natal visits, backdated to July 2016. The College has withdrawn its court case, but states that the 6% increase does not yet bring them up to a pay rate 'with no element of discrimination' based on gender.

Evidence of the gender pay gap in NZ

In March 2017 the Ministry for Women released statistical research on the gender pay gap that updated Sylvia Dixon's 2002 work. Gail Pacheco, Chao Li and Bill Cochrane, Empirical Evidence of the Gender Pay Gap in New Zealand confirms a decade-long gap of 12-12.7% between women's and men's average hourly pay. Their investigation of wage-related data on gender differences in personal and household characteristics, education, occupation/industry, region, part- or full time employment links these factors to part of the gap, leaving 64.4-83.4% 'unexplained'. Women's educational attainment now matches or exceeds men's, but taking age as a proxy for years in the workforce, controlled for marital status and childcare responsibility, shows that women are not begin rewarded for experience. The gender pay gap is greatest in the upper income deciles, reaching 20%; the law setting a minimum wage linked to the median puts a floor under both women and men in the lowest income decile.

The pay penalty attached to women concentration in particular occupations and industries is investigated only at the broadest level of categorisation (1 digit). In future work these researchers plan to investigate occupational segregation by sex in the New Zealand labour market. As MWA notes, this current report does not test the undervaluation of female dominated occupations.

A recent Statistics NZ analysis of The Effect of Motherhood on Pay measured the difference in the gender pay gap between parents of one or more children and non-parents of both sexes. It found a gender pay gap of 17 between female and male parents, compared to 5% with non-parents: that is the motherhood penalty is around 12 percentage points. The penalty is larger for mothers working part-time compared to those working fulltime, but comparison of part-time workers is affected by the very small gender pay gap between non-parent part-timers (who are likely to be mainly young or older workers).

Equal pay claim for retail assistant

An equal pay claim for retail work was filed with the Employment Relations Authority but recently settled out of court. A part-time retail clothing sale assistant with 30 years overall experience, five years with the firm and strong performance was paid the minimum wage. The retail industry is not exclusively female; about 30% of all retail sales assistants are male, and about 12% in retail clothing, are male. The company itself employed no males. The claim was made against male earnings in the retail sector only, to avoid protracted debate about other suitable comparators.

Expert remuneration evidence presented at the hearing drew on 2013 Census income data and job categories. Each retail industry sector showed a clear disparity between male and female retail sales assistants. The greater the percentage of women in the sector the less the disparity. Conversely, the fewer females in the retail sector, the greater the disparity – in the same retail sales assistant role. The gender pay gap in retail appears to be widening. The pay range for men was between $13.75 and $21.15 per hour across the industry, while for women this was between $13.51 and $15.91 per hour.

This claim was made by an individual without union involvement, and a confidential settlement was reached after the hearing. However, the claim has potential to be applied more widely, as female retail wages consistently - and increasingly - lag behind male wages.

See Marie Dew, The Equal Pay Act: Where is it at? Law Talk 904, NZ Law Society. Fox v T& T Fashions Ltd, Employment Relations Authority 5525066, April 2015.

CEVEP notes that the undisclosed settlement provides parity with the retail sector but may not go the full distance to a 'pay equity' rate. Given the female dominance of retail work, and clothing retail in particular, the average pay for males may also be distorted by an overall gender bias within this sector - as the Court Judgments in Bartlett vs. Terranova noted. Selecting male comparators in jobs or sector beyond as well as within the retail sector would aim to address this issue.

Pay equity petition

Over 10,000 women signed the Action Stations petition to the government to adopt the General Principles for Pay Equity and other recommendations by the Joint Working Party (see below), sending a strong message to government that 'It's time for pay equity'.

The Tertiary Education Union is supporting this with a great new poster about the gender pay gap.

Equal pay graphic

General Principles for Pay Equity

On 24 May 2016 a Joint Working Party submitted recommendations to Cabinet on a set of Pay Equity Principles. We are currently awaiting government's response.

This arose as part of the Bartlett vs. Terranova case. Christine Bartlett's union asked the Employment Court to state general principles for the implementation of pay equity under s.9 of the Equal Pay Act. As this was the first time s.9 had ever been used, it was raised as a question of law. The Employment and Appeal Courts agreed that this course could be followed.

However, in November 2015 the government established a Joint Working Party on Pay Equity Principles to develop and recommend to government its own General Principles for the Implementation of Pay Equity. The Joint Working Party comprised four officials, six unions and four employer representatives. No women's organisations were asked to participate. When CEVEP and the Auckland Pay Equity Coalition requested inclusion, we were invited by government facilitator Dame Patsy Reddy to make written submissions. CEVEP's submission commented on the Terms of Reference and proposed our own General Principles for Pay Equity.

Running in parallel with this Joint Working Party, a second government-led Working Party was established to explore possible settlement of the Bartlett pay equity claim, which is due to return to court in 2016. The government has stated that any such settlement will apply to all carers employed in state-funded residential care. As at 7 August 2016 we are awaiting possible settlement.

Gender pay gaps June 2015

Statistics NZ's 2015 Income Survey was released in October. It showed that women are earning on average 86.1% of men’s average hourly ordinary time earnings (women $25.35 an hour, men $29.44).

The median hourly earnings for women in June 2014 were 88.2% those of men, although the actual rate paid was lower than the average (women $21.23, men $24.07). This is less equal than last year, when the median was 90.1%.

Read more about the gender pay gap here. including the latest gender pay gap figures. Statistical explanations can be found here. The full tables of the June 2013 Income Survey can be found on Statistics NZ's website.

Bartlett& SFWU vs. Terranova:
The court case for equal pay for work of equal value

In 2013 the Service & Food Workers Union is supporting one of its members, Kristina Bartlett, to take an equal pay, equal value claim under the 1972 Equal Pay Act. The Pay Equity Challenge Coalition and CEVEP were 'intervening parties' in the first stage of this important test case, where the full Labour Court considered preliminary questions of law. With a great result!

The Employment Court ruled that, for work done exclusively or predominantly by women, wider comparisons than just to male employees in the same organisation would need to be made if that male pay was also likely to be affected by gender discrimination. It disagreed that comparisons with employees in other enterprises or industries are‘unworkable’; expertise is available. Terranova paying four male caregivers the same rates as Kristine was not a complete defence against an equal pay claim. It also ruled that the Court had power under s.9 to make general statements of principle to guide negotiations under the Act.

This judgment allowed the case to proceed to its second stage, when the skills, responsibility, years of service, effort and conditions of work required in Kristine Bartlett's low paid job caring for the elderly will be - thanks to the above ruling - compared to men with similar levels of skill, etc. in jobs and sectors that historically employ exclusively or predominantly men.

Terranova lodged an appeal, which was heard in Wellington on 3-4 February 2014. The Appeal Court's judgement of 28 October upheld the Employment Court's ruling. A further appeal to the Supreme court was rejected.

In late 2015, the government called together a Joint Working Party to negotiate a settlement that it has stated will apply to all carers working in state-funded residential care. As at 9 March 2017, we are still awaiting the outcome of these negotiations. See more on Bartlett and SFWU vs. Terranova Homes...

This case is part of Fair Share for Aged Care, a campaign run by the SFWU and the NZ Nurses Organisation. It aims to win fair pay and decent conditions in aged care through collective bargaining and increased government funding for the aged care sector.

Join the pay equity challenge campaign

The campaign is led by the Pay Equity Challenge Coalition, a broad coalition of community, employer, union, and academic groups who are committed to putting pay equity issues back on the government's and New Zealand's, agenda. CEVEP is an active member of the Coalition. On 10 November 2015 an Equal Pay Picnic was held on Parliament' s lawns to mark the day this year when New Zealand in effect begin to work for nothing. To illustrate this, coffee was sold for 14% more to men and their free apples were cut by 14%!

Another Pay Equity Coalition is active in Auckland, coordinated through the Auckland Women's Centre. One member of this is the YWCA, which began its campaign activism with a petition to Parliament in 2012.

Unions representing large numbers of women have long been behind the push for effective policy on employment equity for women. The NZCTU recognises that pay equity policies and legislation can be an effective strategy for raising poverty-level wages, alongside an adequate minimum wages and their Living Wage Campaign.

Picnic for Equal Pay

Tuesday 10 November 2015 was the day New Zealand women effectively started working for nothing for the rest of the year. It was the occasion for a great picnic on the lawn of Parliament, attended by women MPs and some men from all political parties.