Hawke’s Bay pay equity advocates’ claims fall as bill resets claims process

Minister of Workplace Relations Brooke van Velden on Tuesday announced the overhaul to the Government's pay equity regime. Photo / Marty Melville

Two Hawke’s Bay pay equity advocates are fuming after their claims fell at the final hurdle when the Government rushed legislation through parliament.

The Pay Equity Amendment Bill passed through all stages in Parliament on Wednesday night, after being rushed through under urgency after Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden announced the move on Tuesday morning.

The controversial legislation raises the threshold for proving work has been historically undervalued when making a pay equity claim.

Thirty-three current claims, representing thousands of workers, will now be dropped and must be started again.

Van Velden said she still supported pay equity but the laws surrounding the claims process had become “muddied and unclear” and said amendments made by the previous Government in 2020 had created issues.

Amending the Equal Pay Act would make the process of raising and resolving pay equity claims “more robust, workable and sustainable”, she said.

PPTA regional chair and science teacher at Karamū High School Madeline Gray.

The changes would “significantly reduce” costs to the Crown, which totalled $1.78 billion a year, she said.

They include raising the threshold of work “predominantly performed by female employees” from 60% to 70% and requiring that this has been the case for at least 10 years.

For Madeline Gray, a science teacher at Karamū High School and regional chair at the Post Primary Teachers Association Te Wehengarua (PPTA), what hurt most was their “pay equity claim was almost there”.

“It‘s been a very long process that a lot of teachers have committed a really large amount of time to, something that we’re not particularly rich in, to ensure that it comes through,” she said.

“It’s really clear that it is just about money for [the Government], it’s not about equity, it’s not about making things right that had been wrong. It is just purely about money.”

Gray said she had been waiting for the other shoe to drop when the Government announced a $53 million boost for teacher registrations, practising certificate fees, and Teaching Council fee increases.

“This is the other shoe – that money is more important to them than women,” she said.

Gray said she could “walk into a job” in Australia that was paying her significantly more – potentially $40,000 more.

A lot of teachers were crossing the Ditch because they could no longer afford to live in New Zealand on their wages, she said.

Gray said teaching wasn’t just about the money for her, “but what happens to a teacher affects their students”.

“The students are what matters and they need teachers in classrooms,” she said.

Home support worker and pay equity activist with Tamara Baddeley had waited since June 2022 for her pay equity claim, which has now fallen at the last hurdle.

Tamara Baddeley, a home support worker in Hastings and Napier and a pay equity activist for E Tū union, worked alongside Kristine Bartlett for the historic 2017 pay equity settlement against Bartlett’s employer, Terranova Homes.

Baddeley had waited since June 2022 for her pay equity claim to also fall at the last hurdle when Van Velden made the announcement.

She said the move by the Government is “absolutely gut-wrenching and devastating” and said carers “were missing out”.

“A standard 40-hour worker was missing out on $147 a week in their pay, based on the 20% undervaluation used in the Kristine Bartlett equal-pay settlement, which equates to $18,000 over a thousand days in everybody’s pockets,” she said.

“That’s money that can be back in the local economy, that’s money that we actually deserve and need.

“There’s a hell of a lot I could with $18,000, I could have done with $18,000 over the last two-and-a-half years but we’re not worthy of it, apparently.”

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and spent the last 15 years working in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin and Napier. He reports on all stories relevant to residents of the region.