Outrage reverberated across the nation when the National-led Government revealed their decision to cancel every pay equity claim and under urgency drastically change the Equal Pay Act. Working women and their unions have defended pay equity before. And we can do it again.  

National has a track record of abolishing pay equity legislation. In 1990, the newly elected National Government repealed the Employment Equity Act. They told workers, women, and unions that it was too hard.  

Repealing the Employment Equity law did not stop people from continuing to advocate for employment equity – equal pay for work of equal value. Unions and women’s organisations kept advocating to ensure New Zealand workers receive pay equity as outlined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Equal Remuneration Convention C100. This international labour standard was passed in 1951 and ratified by NZ in 1983 and commits countries to “ensure the application to all workers of the principle of equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value”.

In 2017 unions won the landmark Terranova/Kristine Bartlett case after unions raised pay equity for care and support workers through the Equal Pay Act 1972. This case highlighted equal pay principles to ensure the application of pay equity and led to the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2020. It is only since the enactment of this Act that we have seen the achievement of pay equity settlements.

The PSA has settled five pay equity claims across the health sector and social services sector. From this experience we know how important legislation is and the difference equal pay for work of equal value means for people doing undervalued work. This is about people being valued for the skill level and complexity of their work as well as being able to afford to live, not just exist.

The PSA and other unions had 33 pay equity claims in progress when on the 6th May 2025 the current National led Government changed the Equal Pay Act 2020. All these claims were abolished by the new Act and the money that had been set aside for pay equity settlements reallocated to balance the budget.

Why pay equity is important

Living in New Zealand should be affordable for everyone, and our pay shouldn't be shaped by outdated ideas about gender and work.

Pay equity has been getting us closer to that. It’s lifted pay for people doing skilled and complex work every day, the people holding society together, like home support workers, nurses, librarian assistants, probation officers, and administrators. These are the kinds of jobs mostly done by women that involve technical and practical skills, high levels of responsibility for people, and often significant physical or emotional demands. But these jobs get unfairly restricted to lower pay than jobs largely done by men that require similar levels of skill, responsibility, and effort.

Equal pay for work of equal value – pay equity – does not fix the causes of undervaluation but it does go some way to recognise the massive contribution these underpaid workers make to society.

OMG! What just happened?

On Tuesday 6 May without notice, Minister for Workplace Relations Brooke Van Velden announced sweeping and deeply regressive changes to pay equity. Two days later the changes were law, pushed through Parliament under urgency. This undemocratic haste meant that no one, particularly the affected workers, had a chance to exercise their democratic rights and have their say in a select committee process. Even worse, the law canceled claims already lawfully raised from going ahead. Many of these claims had gone through years of process, established a significant body of evidence, and were ready for settlement in the coming months.

The law was passed so the Government could use funds set aside for pay equity to fund tax incentives for business and to plug budget holes left by promises the Government had not properly costed. ACT Leader David Seymour claimed this as a victory and celebrated this as “saving us billions”, making it very clear what the true reason behind these changes were. The Government chose cost-cutting and tax cuts for the wealthy over investment, fairness, and dignity for women workers.

Everything changed

Many people could tell what was happening was unjust. But they forced massive changes with reckless haste, so it makes sense that some are unsure what exactly happened. Many politicians also worked hard to make things confusing and hide what was being done.

Here’s a summary of what they did:

• The Government cancelled every single pay equity claim. There were 33 claims covering more than 150,000 working people – mostly women, but gender diverse people and men too.
• The Government stopped groups like teachers, residential schools workers, and probation officers from being able to raise a claim. The law raised the threshold for a pay equity claim from a threshold of 60% performed by women to 70% performed by women. This ended existing claims such as those by teachers and Community Corrections staff who are 68% women.
• The Government blocked investigations from looking at comparators from different sectors or industries to the sector the claim is in. That means social workers can only be compared with male dominated work in the social service sector, if there are no male dominated jobs in that sector the claim ends and cannot continue, making pay equity impossible in many the very sectors with the highest proportion of women and the greatest risk of undervaluation. Because of this new rule about comparison, thousands of women will stay underpaid, and the gender pay gap is entrenched.  
• The Government made pay equity processes inefficient and an issue for individual employers when it is often a whole occupation or sector issue. Often, it’s sensible for a handful of employers to be part of a claim together. But now, every workplace needs its own separate claim and process. Support workers under the old law had 3 claims. Now they’ll need hundreds.
• The Government has allowed employers to opt-out of multi-employer claims without having to give a reason. Unions and employers have worked collaboratively on pay equity claims and tried to ensure settlements can cover whole sectors so no one is left behind.
• The Government has changed the requirement from a low bar of “arguability” to raise a claim to a high bar of “merit” to have a claim investigation begin. This means workers will have to run investigations themselves, prove there is undervaluation, and hope the employer agrees with their findings. The employer now starts off as an adversary deciding if there is enough proof instead of a partner exploring and fixing a problem alongside workers. It will block many from achieving equity and end the collaborative nature of the work.  
• The Government stopped the requirement to review settlements to maintain pay equity over time. Even where there is evidence that undervaluation has re-emerged over time, the settlement can’t be reviewed and updated. That means for people like hospital administrators, pay rates will regress over time and they’ll have to start from the beginning and raise a new claim.
• The Government created a 10-year wait to raise a claim after settlement. This means that the care and support workers covered by their original claim in 2017 can’t raise a new claim until 2027. In the meantime, inflation has already eroded the value of their pay to a point where they are again paid far less than men doing work of the same or similar levels of skill, responsibility, or demand.

It's bad, but we’re not giving up

Working women and their unions have turned around attacks on pay equity before, and we can do it again.  And that’s exactly what we’re doing now. Along with other unions and allies the PSA is planning action right through until next year’s election, including:

• empowering members to apply political and community pressure by lobbying - meeting with and writing to current Government MPs and opposition MPs in the lead up to the General Election
• supporting and leading public campaigns and taking collective action in collaboration with the CTU to ensure pay equity remains a live issue for all parties leading up to the general election
• incorporating and utilising the significant work undertaken on pay equity claims so far within collective bargaining to negotiate pay increases for the workers that were covered by these claims
• supporting the People’s Select Committee on Pay Equity, made up of 10 former MPs from across the political spectrum and led by former National Party MP Professor Marilyn Waring DNZM.

Submissions to this group will enable experts, organisations and affected employers and workers to give their views and the evidence that should have been heard in Parliament ahead of the legislation being voted on. You can follow the action at www.payequity.org.nz.

While the PSA will be campaigning for new pay equity law, it will be not be pursuing any claims under the current legislation. Our view is that the process is unworkable, unjust and will not deliver pay equity for workers in female-dominated occupations.