PSA MEDIA RELEASE

July 1, 2011

Public service also needs to admit gender pay gap and take lead on closing it

The country’s biggest union, the PSA, supports calls for business to play its role in closing the gender pay gap and believes the public service must also take action.

“Nearly a third of government departments have gender pay gaps above 20 percent and in one department, the New Zealand Defence Force, the gender pay gap is nearly 39 percent,” says PSA National Secretary Brenda Pilott.

This shameful gap is mirrored in the poor representation of women in senior public management positions.

“It’s indefensible that 59 percent of New Zealand’s public service workers are women, yet less than 10 percent of department chief executives are women,” says Ms Pilott.

“Of the 33 public service departments only three have women CEOs; one of those is at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and another is retiring shortly.

“At least five public service CEO positions are either vacant or due to become vacant shortly. The PSA calls on the state employer, the State Services Commission, to take this opportunity to address the gender discrepancy.

“A recent Ministry of Women’s Affairs report concluded that companies that have women on their boards outperform those that do not. Without doubt the same applies in the public sector.

“Research both here and overseas shows that organisations benefit when women are well represented at the top, yet women remain an untapped leadership resource in New Zealand.

“The government says it wants to improve productivity. Now is the time to do that with a renewed plan of action to get rid of gender inequality in the workplace. The public service needs initiatives that tackle the issue and bring about the necessary change.

“Some departments, for example Corrections which has a gender pay gap of 2.3 percent, have taken excellent initiatives to address the work life balance and family commitments when designing roles while ensuring provisions for career development.

“At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, senior women started a women directors’ support network. Initiatives like these should be encouraged in other parts of the public service.

Despite New Zealand being one of the first countries to advance the rights of women, present day public service workplaces do not reflect that proud history. Now is the time to change that,” says Brenda Pilott.

ENDS

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