Late Speculation Will Only Further Delay Pay Equity

Employer representatives are frustrated by a Health NZ Te Whatu Ora report that claims the group has over-estimated the undervaluation of workers pay, as part of a care and support worker pay equity claim.

“The risk here is that pay equity for workers and certainty for employers, who’ve already waited long enough, will be dragged out even longer. This report is full of speculation with little evidence, and my preference is we ignore it and carry on,” said New Zealand Disability Support Network CEO Peter Reynolds.

“It’s all very well wondering if more or different information might be valuable, but all sides have followed the steps asked of them. We can’t wait any longer.”

The independent review’s report confirms employers and unions involved in the process followed the legal and prescriptive process required under the Equal Pay Act, and largely followed the advice given by the Public Service Commission at the time. That process requires a specific approach to establishing pay equity, and only considers the matter of funding at the last step.

Health NZ Te Whatu Ora, along with a number of other Government funding agencies acting in an Oversight Group, endorsed every step of the process undertaken until the next-to-last step when they saw how much pay equity for these care and support workers had fallen behind.

“Since then, Health NZ Te Whatu Ora have taken every possible step to delay and prevaricate in an effort to apply pressure on the parties to arbitrarily reduce the level of undervaluation.”

“When the first pay equity claim for care and support workers was tabled, the sector was told by then-Minister of Health Andrew Little that the claim should take no more than 12 months to resolve. We’re now two years later, and no closer to resolution,” said Peter Reynolds.

Since the new Government has dissolved the Public Service Commission Pay Equity Taskforce and removed the Pay Equity Funded Framework (the process that applies when a sector involved in a pay equity claim is substantially or wholly funded by Government), employers and unions have consistently sought clarity from Health NZ Te Whatu Ora around what process replaces the Funded Framework.

“The Government is 100% in control of this process. They still fund this sector through no less than eight different agencies, and set the pay equity level in 2017 following a court case, including the rates of pay for care and support workers. They even set the law and rules by which these pay equity claims must progress. It’s not employers or unions’ fault that now the Government feels it can’t afford to pay.”

“It’s certainly not appropriate or fair that Health NZ Te Whatu Ora, their lead funding agency in these claims, continues to delay and bully parties into accepting something less on behalf of 65,000 underpaid care and support workers. Stop the dillydallying and let’s get this sorted,” said Peter Reynolds.

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