MindTheGap campaigners are calling on the Government to urgently make a public commitment to addressing the Pay Gap before the anniversary of the Equal Pay Legislation.

On October 20, it will be 50 years since the law was passed in New Zealand, making it illegal for men to be paid more than women for the same work.

But MindTheGap co-founder Jo Cribb says fifty years later people are still not being paid fairly in New Zealand.

Dr Cribb says for example for every dollar a Pākehā male earns a Pākehā woman is being paid 89 cents, a Māori man 86 cents and a Pasifika woman 75 cents.

“It’s outrageous that an entire half a century after New Zealanders fought for equal pay, large sections of our communities are not being paid fairly or equally. Every day the government doesn’t act is another day where families have less money.”

“The Government has said it is looking at addressing pay gaps but hasn’t committed to a timeframe. If there was ever a time to honour the good work done by those pioneers of the Equal Pay legislation it is now. “

“We call on the Government to publicly commit to introducing mandatory pay gap reporting.”

Two of the women who fought for the Equal Pay legislation are adding their support to the demands for the Government to make a commitment.

Former Council for Equal Pay and Opportunity (CEPO) Secretary and Human Rights Commissioner Rae Julian says when the legislation was passed, they thought they’d achieved equal pay.

“Twelve years of concerted effort by women’s organisations, trade unions, and a specially established group CEPO. It seemed that equality had been attained.”

But she says years later it was obvious that gender equality was still far off with women’s average earnings more than 16% lower than those of men and the gap for Māori and Pasifika women even larger.

“Discrimination was a major factor. Jobs performed mainly by women attracted lower pay despite the comparable skills, qualifications, and experience brought to mainly male and mainly female work.

Women’s advocate Sue Kedgley says they were elated when the Equal Pay legislation was passed but their hopes were quickly dashed.

“Naively we assumed that equal pay for women would be implemented as soon as the legislation came into force, but it became obvious that the Equal Pay Act lacked teeth.

There wasn’t any real penalty for employers who didn’t comply with the law. Nor was there any requirement that employers make adjustments to ensure female employees catch up with their male colleagues or ensure they were equitably paid.

Sue Kedgley says with gender, Māori, Pacific, and ethnic pay gaps still persisting it’s time to accelerate progress and use other tools, like transparency and mandatory pay gap reporting,

‘Surely, the fiftieth anniversary of the passing of the Equal Pay Act in October this year would be an ideal time to put an end to fifty years of foot-dragging, by introducing a new law that would make it mandatory for all organisations to publicly report their gender pay gap each year so that everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand is paid fairly for their work.

Last week thirteen New Zealand businesses joined forces to publish an open letter asking the “Government to even up the playing field and require larger businesses to report their pay gaps publicly.” The businesses are: Skycity, Westpac, Frucor Suntory, AIA, Lion, DB Breweries, Coca Cola, Xero, Kiwibank, Meridian, Chorus, Z Energy, and Auckland Transport.

MindTheGap campaigners will be handing over a petition to parliament at 11.30 on Tuesday 11 October.

https://our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/close-the-gender-and-ethnic-pay-gaps-make-pay-gap-reporting-mandatory-for-businesses-in-new-zealand

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