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.

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.

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