What is the Women’s Network?
A place for women members to share experiences about work and organise around the things that need to change. Over 40,000 women are members of the PSA.
Our aims:
• promote the interests of women within the PSA
• facilitate the sharing of information and experiences; and
• encourage and support women’s participation in PSA representative structures at all levels.
Founding members
The PSA has a long history of women members coming together to make change happen. Our founding members – activists past and present, talk about their involvement:
Margaret Long
Jean Greedy
Cath Kelly
Paula Scholes PSA president
Georgina Kerr PSA vice-president
Jackie Kerr
Debbie Taylor
Diana McRae
Coleen Sayer-Roberts
Jenny Fraser
Janet Quigley
Pam Jemmet
Alison van Dyk
News
Suffrage Day
The 19th September 2010 will be the 117th anniversary of New Zealand women obtaining the right to vote. The right to vote, regardless of gender is called ‘suffrage, however the 19th September marks the day when the Electoral Bill granting women the vote was given the Royal Assent and NZ women voted for the first time in the election held on 28 November 1893, henceforth called ‘Women’s Suffrage Day”. Read on.
Show your support for women in low paid jobs
Clerical workers in South Island DHBs, school support staff, disability and home care workers and hospital cleaners have all been offered a 0% increase this year. These jobs are paid at or just above the minimum wage and are mostly done by women. A series of protest rallies will take place across the country between 12:30 and 1:30pm on Friday 27 November. Come along to show support. Download the flyer with list of venues
here.
No ma'am's land
PSA organiser Tanja Bristow went along to hear leadership expert Susan Vinnicombe, professor of organisational behaviour and diversity management at Britain's Cranfield University, speak about about the impact of women on boards. Here are Tanja's notes from the seminar .
CTU conference supports pay equity
The Council of Trade Unions conference passed remits in support of pay equity including a call for the Minister of Education to release the School's Pay and Employment Equity(PAEE) Report and implement its recommendations and a call for the Minister of Social Development to release the outcome of the PAEE report for CYF social workers and implement its recommendations.
For more about what's happening with PAEE see our
PAEE webpage The conference also voted to support private sector unions to undertake PAEE audits. So far there have been no PAEE audits done in the private sector.
First ITUC women's conference
From 20 to 24 October 450 women representing union members from around the world met in Brussels for the first women's conference of the International Trades Union Congress.
The PSA is affiliated to the ITUC through the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and we were represented at the conference by Suzanne McNabb from the Tertiary Education Union.
Here's a link to the conference web page where you'll find information about the the conference and also links to web pages comparing women's pay and working conditions around the globe:
http://women.wageindicator.org/english/home Read what Australian union leader Sharan Burrow said about the conference.
Discussion forum
Results
Contacts
Join the Women's Network
Sign up to hear about news, information and events relevant to women members
Simply tick the box for the Women's Network when you login and update your details on the PSA website.
Women’s Network co-ordinator
Jo Taylor has been appointed as the PSA Women’s Network co-ordinator. Jo is a PSA organiser based in the Dunedin office. She has worked for the PSA since 1997, with some breaks to have babies. Jo has an organising workload that covers home support workers who work for non government organisations provided social services to the elderly and disabled. These members are predominantly women, low paid, under valued and hard to organise as they have no common workplace. “This role is great as I can bring my many years of experience organising women workers. I look forward to working with you all”
jo.taylor@psa.org.nz