Achieving pay equity: Strategic mobilization for substantive equality in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

In an unprecedented move the New Zealand Government in 2017 announced a $2 billion pay equity settlement for 55,000 healthcare workers in aged and disability residential care and home and community support services. The settlement reversed the Government's previous austerity stance that pay equity for carers was too expensive, and that pay parity in the sector was out of the question. The political concession followed five years of intensive equal pay feminist activism. While pay equity settlements overseas have generally used either legal opportunity structures or government intervention, this article argues it was the combination of complementary and intersecting elements of mobilization that led to the negotiated settlement. These elements include a statutory human rights inquiry; legal opportunity; civil society coalition building; increased women's voice; and a government‐led negotiated settlement. The novel theoretical contribution of this article is its empirical support for the concept of substantive equality.

Muay Thai: Women, fighting, femininity

“…While some women find going under the ropes a symbol of inferiority, other women, perhaps trying to excuse sexism, told us that they are pleased to go under the ropes as they would likely embarrassingly fall if they went over. As elsewhere, women in Muay Thai are paid less than men (see McGregor and Davies, 2018). Some women find this abhorrent while others state that they do not do the sport for money and therefore are not concerned if they are paid less than men.…”

Redressing gendered undervaluation in New Zealand aged care: Institutions, activism and coalitions

“…Previous attempts at addressing equal pay through the EPA provided marginal relief focusing largely on the removal of formal inequality through differentiated wage rates between men and women under awards (Hill, 2013: 15). Further attempts at reviving equal pay through the introduction of the Employment Equity Act 1990 by the Lange Labour Government and the establishment of the Pay Equity Employment Unit in 2004 under the Clarke Labour Government were reversed and disbanded by incoming National governments (McGregor and Davies, 2019).…”

“…Second, McGregor took the unorthodox decision to go undercover as a care worker within the sector and publicly spoke about her experiences during the Inquiry (p. 96). Her decision to do so was prompted by a challenge from unions and aged care employers that policy makers should not make pronouncements on matters that they had not experienced (McGregor and Davies, 2019: 623), and her direct experience was incorporated into the final report (NZHRC, 2012: 127–128). While there was some journalistic concern about the subterfuge involved, McGregor’s personal experience of the work of aged care garnered significant media attention during the Inquiry and following the release of the Inquiry report (McGregor, 2013: 106).…”

“…Human rights-based inquiries have been a useful mechanism in New Zealand for raising public awareness and understanding about an issue (McGregor and Davies, 2019). The Caring Counts Inquiry was an exemplar of this mechanism, with public support enabling equal pay and better working conditions for aged care workers to be leveraged (McGregor, 2013).…”

“…The NZHRC and the union movement activism towards the achievement of the equal pay settlement also built on significant engagement, both separately and in collaboration, with the women’s movement in New Zealand. Indeed, there is a strong history of women’s organisations, unions and pay equity organisations working together for equal pay over a lengthy period in New Zealand (Hill, 1994; Hyman, 2015; McGregor and Davies, 2019; Wilson, 1992). The PSA, in particular, has invested significant resources to pursue equal pay over more than a century (Martin et al., 2018).…”