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Protests Against New Pay Equity Legislation Continue
A second day of protests against changes to pay equity laws are being held around the country, after hundreds braved bad weather on Friday to express their anger over the government's sudden change to legislation.
The law change, rushed through Parliament under urgency this week, means 33 claims - representing thousands of workers - must be restarted.
Nelson Post Primary Teachers' Association regional chair Anna Heinz said 1500 people turned out to march along the city's main street just after 11am on Saturday. She said a real mix of people had come out to express their anger.
"Old, young, women, men, all kinds of different areas of society, it's a real broad range of people."
Heinz said "everyone" there was outraged by the speed of the law change, as well as the "arrogance and cowardice" of those responsible for it.
However, the attitude at the protest was positive, she said.
"They're all pleased to be here, because they feel disempowered from being able to make change. So being able to go on a march at least feels like something they can do."
Heinz said the Equal Pay Act 1972 was groundbreaking because it compared pay for workers in female-dominated sectors with similar jobs in male-dominated roles.
"I was a 12-year-old when they passed [it], and I noticed it at the time and thought, 'Gosh that sounds like an important thing.'
"I was aware of conversation at the time that said the big change and the big difference was going to be the comparators outside of the area where the women were working.
"That's the very thing that's been changed with this legislation change. They've taken the heart out of what was the best bit of that piece of legislation, that's what makes me so angry."
The change in legislation was announced by Workplace Minister Brooke van Velden on Tuesday, and would make it harder to lodge claims.
On Friday, under questioning from RNZ as protests swept the country, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said individuals and unions whose claims had been halted could resubmit their applications.
Luxon said the changes affected what was required in terms of the breadth of claims.
"For example, you've had librarians being compared in pay equity work to the work of fisheries officers."
He said there needed to be a comparative hierarchy of jobs to make the system more workable and give it more certainty.
"Pay equity is an issue where you have women in particular, in female-dominated industries, looking to the value of the work that they do is akin to value that might be a different job done in a different industry or a different sector."
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