In the letter, they spoke about how they recognise their lives are privileged but feel a responsibility to advocate for those more directly affected and urge Van Velden to reverse the amendment.
They also requested an explanation for the reasoning behind the amendment. The new law has scrapped the pay equity claims of more than 180,000 low-income workers, and Treasury estimates it will cost those workers $13 billion in settlements over the next four years – that’s $70,000 each. $300 a week. Which just goes to show you the scale of unfairness that women still face in the workplace in Aotearoa.
I’m proud of this young generation for calling out injustice when they see it and having the guts to demand proper answers from those in power, not the wishy-washy excuses we have seen so far.
Will Minister Van Velden front up? I would hope so. Because if you’re going to take such enormous sums of money from workers by denying them their right to pay equity, you better be willing to justify yourself – with real answers, not just spin.
And I hope these young people will carry this experience with them. When you see something wrong, stand up and speak up for justice.
If I were a National Party strategist, I would be very worried about where the pay equity issue is taking the Government.
About one in 10 households in Aotearoa have someone who has just lost their hope of pay equity. Taking away low-paid workers’ hopes of the pay equity wage boost they were due while funding billions for corporate tax cuts has given final proof of whose side the Government is on.
The latest TVNZ and RNZ polls have National well below its result last election. Protests and the people’s select committee will keep the issue in people’s minds. If pay equity comes to represent the difference in values between a National-led and a Labour-led Government heading into the next election, the polls will only get worse.
I asked Fleur Fitzsimons, head of the Public Service Association, whose members include tens of thousands of those denied pay equity, about what happens from here. She told me: “We won’t be silenced by this Government. New Zealand history is full of moments where women stood up for what is right, this is one of those moments.
“The Government should welcome the chance to hear from women, employers’ unions and experts about pay equity, not shut us out and cancel claims without warning.
“No matter what the Government says or does, they won’t silence us, we will be heard on the streets, in the courts, and at this people’s select committee. It’s just the beginning.”
There are suggestions of organising a petition for a citizens-initiated referendum for the next election on whether to restore the pay equity legislation. I think that would be a great move. It would give hope and be an issue the left can unify around. I know a lot of people, like my daughter and her friends, would be out there helping to collect signatures. It would make the required number in record time.
The people’s select committee and possibly a referendum are ways to let people have their say on pay equity, which was denied to them when the law was rushed through under urgency with no consultation.
It’s something the Government should back, too. If they think they are in the right, they have nothing to fear from a proper public debate.
Maybe, just maybe, the opportunity to hear from the people affected and from people, like my daughter, outraged by the injustice of the attack on pay equity will convince the Government to change tack – before it faces a reckoning at the ballot box.
