Source: Radio New Zealand
Pay equity protestors voice their opinions outside Parliament on Budget Day 2025. RNZ/Marika Khabazi
A group of organisations have lodged a formal complaint with the United Nations, asking it to investigate whether the government’s changes to New Zealand’s pay equity laws amount to systemic discrimination against women.
Last year the government cancelled claims that covered more than 180,000 workers – the vast majority women – across care and disability support, education, health, and community and social services.
The complaint to the UN, brought by Pay Equity Coalition Aotearoa (PECA) – which comprises of 20 organisations – comes one year after legislation which cancelled existing pay equity claims and introduced stricter tests for bringing new claims.
Dame Judy McGregor, spokesperson for PECA, said the changes had stalled progress for workers in historically undervalued roles.
“These are roles that have been chronically undervalued for decades. A year on, workers are no closer to justice. The law change has created a system that is much harder to access or work with – one where the thresholds and controls now make it extremely difficult for claims to proceed.”
Professor Gail Pacheco, Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner at the Human Rights Commission, said pay equity was a fundamental human right protected under the international conventions New Zealand was party to.
“The amendments made last year undermined the right to pay equity. Introduced without any consultation, they reversed decades of progress and made it significantly harder to address structural undervaluation of workers in female dominated occupations.”
The complaint has been made by four victims of pay discrimination, their representative unions, and the Pay Equity Coalition Aotearoa.
Mel Burgess, a teacher and NZEI Te Riu Roa member, is one of the four women specifically mentioned in the complaint.
“Like women everywhere, I just felt blindsided. We had been going for eight years by that stage for the early childhood claim.”
Melissa Ansell-Bridges, Secretary of the NZ Council of Trade Unions, said the issue however did go beyond individual claims.
“This isn’t about one claim or one sector. It’s about whether the law itself now creates a system that structurally disadvantages women.”
New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) spokesperson and hospice nurse Fiona McDougal said almost 95 percent of NZNO nurses and support staff working for hospices are female.
“It is no longer acceptable for us to be underpaid because caring has long been considered the role of women.”
While Sandra Kirby, chief executive of Rural Women New Zealand, said a year on the women who lost their pay equity claims were still showing up, still caring for elderly, still teaching children, and she said, they were still waiting to be paid fairly for it.
“Workers across the country were hurt, but rural communities feel it in a particular way, because so much of what keeps them alive depends on work in health, education and care that has historically been undervalued and underpaid.”
Van Velden says law has been made simpler
Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden said New Zealand continued to have a robust, workable pay equity system.
“We’ve made the law simpler and protections for pay equity remain. Claims are already progressing under the new system.”
She said the Human Rights Commission was independent, and it was for the Commissioners to decide what they believed they should submit to the United Nations.
“Our focus is ensuring pay equity is delivered through a clear, evidence-based process that is fair and sustainable.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand