Roundtable Reaches Consensus

The high quality work that has already been done on pay equity provides ample evidence of the problems and issues, delegates at the Human Rights Commission’s roundtable of pay and employment equity agreed.

“The consensus was that there is more than enough evidence and material around pay equity to promote, advise, educate and reform - what’s needed now is the mechanism and the funding to allow agencies to put pay equity into practice”, said facilitator Joanna Beresford.

There was general agreement that the issue is complex, and will need a range of responses including collective bargaining, individual cases, a unified campaign, and potential enforcement of legislation, she said.

The broad-based consensus of concern from all who attended the roundtable was heartening, said NZEI’s National secretary Paul Goulter.

“The meeting was a chance to look at what we can do jointly to start winning on pay equity- the challenge is to change the political platform on this. The Government has to see that people won’t accept these injustices continuing.”

NZEI sees pay and employment equity as a 'front and centre' issue because of the 13,000 school support workers it represents, he said. They are overwhelmingly women and many are paid under $15 per hour. Special education support workers have a clear pay gap of $2-$4 per hour with equivalent workers.

“What was clear, too, was that the commitment from key players to genuine equality for women is as strong in 2009 as it was twenty years ago”, said Joanna Beresford. “Everyone who attended was prepared to work to achieve that.”