Today marks 1000 days that 65,000 mainly female care and
support workers have waited for the Government to fund their
pay equity claim, meaning they have missed out on about
$18,600.
In 2017 legislation increased the pay of care
and support workers to 21% above the minimum wage. This
increase was in recognition that care and support workers
have been historically underpaid because the sector is
female dominated.
The 2017 legislation had
a five-year time limit, which expired in June 2022. Since
then, as a result of successive governments’ refusal to
fund a new pay equity settlement, about 65,000 mainly female
care and support workers are losing $145 a week they are
entitled to. That amounts to $18,662
each.
With no new pay equity settlement
being agreed, care and support workers have seen their
hard-won pay equity settlement eroded by inflation and the
failure to maintain relativity above the minimum wage, says
Melissa Woolley, an Assistant Secretary with the Public
Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga
Mahi.
“These workers are now largely back on the
minimum wage and many have had no wage increase for two
years, making a mockery of the pay equity
settlement.
“The failure to fund a settlement is a
major and shameful breach of human rights,” says Woolley,
who is a former care and support worker.
Some
background
In 2017 a pay equity deal was enshrined in
legislation by the then National-led Coalition government.
The deal settled a successful court case brought by Lower
Hutt aged care worker Kristine Bartlett that she was not
receiving equal pay as required by the Equal Pay
Act.
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Only after the legislation expired in 2022 were
the three unions representing care and support workers –
PSA, E tū, and the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) –
legally able to raise a new claim on behalf of care and
support workers.
“Care and support workers should
never have been put in this position of having to raise a
new claim. The Government should have agreed a new deal
before the legislation expired,” Woolley says.
“A
thousand days have passed with that claim remaining
unsettled. In that time our analysis shows that care and
support workers are losing $145 each week, which means
workers have been ripped off by $18,661.66 each,” Woolley
says. “This has caused financial hardship and deep
distress.”
A care worker’s story
Dunedin
health care assistant and New Zealand Nurses Organisation
Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) delegate
Marita Ansin-Johnson says the $18,000 they have missed out
on over the past three years would have made a real
difference to her life and the lives of other care and
support workers.
“It would have made my life easier.
I’ve had to save for repairs on my house. It’s the
simple things. Good kai on the table, a roof over your head
and being able to afford to go to the
doctors.”
Ansin-Johnson has a message for the
Government: “Give us a fair go. We are looking after New
Zealanders who fought for us. We are trying to give them
quality of life in return.”
The cost of caring for
some of the most vulnerable
Wooley says the workers
covered by the legislation care for some of the most
vulnerable people in our community including the elderly,
disabled people, those with mental health and addictions
needs and injured people.
“Care and support workers
enable those who need care to live with dignity and receive
the assistance they require. For many that means being able
to live in their own homes rather than the government paying
for their care in expensive hospitals or other
institutions.
“Since 2022 successive governments have
been ripped off women workers, effectively using their
commitment to the people they support, hard work and lost
wages to subsidise the provision of care and support for the
vulnerable in our communities,” says Woolley.
“It’s
blatant sexism. The Government is waging economic war
against these largely female workers rather than funding a
pay equity settlement that has been agreed is fair and the
right thing to do.
“We call on this Government to
follow the lead of the previous National-led coalition,
settle this case and remedy this massive injustice,” Woolley
says.
Notes
PSA analysis of lost wages is
based on the 21% margin above the minimum wage that care and
support workers received in the 2017 settlement. The
settlement rates, or the minimum wage rate, whichever was
higher has been compared with what the rate would have been
if the 21% margin had been maintained. The comparison is
based on a 30-hour work
week.
