50 Years Since Equal Pay Act - Midwives Still Waiting For Pay Equity

In Aotearoa in October 1972, poet JK Baxter died, Donny Osmond had the #1 hit with Puppy Love, Norman Kirk was about to be elected as Prime Minister, and the Equal Pay Act came into being.

50 years ago on October 20th, the Act was passed “to make provision for the removal and prevention of discrimination, based on the sex of the employees, in the rates of remuneration of males and females in paid employment”.

Nelson midwife Elizabeth Winterbee, an organiser of tomorrow’s commemoration event on Parliament grounds (Thursday 1-2pm), was born not long after the Act was passed.  She is still waiting for pay equality.

“New Zealand’s national gender pay gap has been reducing over the past 25 years, but progress has slowed in the last five years,” she says. “For any country in the 21st century this is wrong and in Aotearoa New Zealand with our suffrage history and a number of high-profile women in very senior roles, it’s inexcusable.”

Ms Winterbee was on the oversight group of the Midwifery Pay Equity claim. Her union, MERAS (the Midwives’ Union), has twice taken legal action against the DHBs and the Ministry of Health – firstly because the employer refused to acknowledge GPs as a potential comparator for midwives, and secondly to challenge delays in progressing the midwives’ claim.

MERAS is currently seeking mediation over issues with Te Whatu Ora in relation to comparators.

Union co-leader - Industrial, Jill Ovens, says women have historically been employed in a limited range of occupations, where the tasks and skills required are seen as an extension of traditional unpaid work of women.

“So called “Women’s work” has historically been underpaid because our work is not valued as highly as work predominantly performed by men,” she says. “Midwives have been underpaid and undervalued because they are almost all women and they were seen as a sub-set of nurses, who also suffer from historical undervaluing. Here we are fifty years after the Act was passed to stop this discrimination and it’s still happening. That’s beyond disappointing.”

Elizabeth Winterbee agrees.

“It may be fifty years on, but we will continue to fight for what is right because if we don’t, there are long-term far-reaching consequences. I don’t want, on my conscience, for future midwives – 10, 20, 30 or more years ahead – to look back and realise we could have done more,” she says.

Media Advisory: We understand that Groundswell is planning a protest at Parliament at 12.30pm on Thursday and we have asked the Speaker to provide additional security to protect the peaceful women’s commemoration of a hugely significant Act.

Additional

WHAT? Midwives and other union women and supporters will be picnicking on the grounds of Parliament to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, 1-2pm, Thursday, 20 October. They plan to wear clothes worn by political activists who were agitating for “Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value”, a key demand of the Working Women’s Charter championed by Sonya Davies in the FOL in the 1970s. Some will be wearing black to protest the slow progress of pay equity claims of nurses, midwives and other women in female-dominated professions.

WHY? The Equal Pay Act 1972 was enacted on 20 October 1972, “to make provision for the removal and prevention of discrimination, based on the sex of the employees, in the rates of remuneration of males and females in paid employment”. Although equal pay already existed for employees in the public sector, private sector employers were still permitted to pay men and women at different rates for the same work.  

Since it was enacted, the Act has been used to help achieve pay equity as well as equal pay. In 2013, Kristine Bartlett and the Service and Food Workers Union, Nga Ringa Tota (now E Tū) brought a pay equity claim against TerraNova Homes and Care, an aged residential care provider. Their claim said that care and support workers were underpaid compared with other similar groups of employees. This disparity was due to historical gender-based discrimination because the workforce is predominantly female. They argued that this was in breach of the Equal Pay Act, which guaranteed equal pay for work of equal value, as well as for the same work.  

Achieving pay equity is a key step in reducing New Zealand's gender pay gap. New Zealand’s national gender pay gap has been reducing over the past 25 years, but progress has slowed over the past five years. The gender pay gap has remained at nine percent since 2017, but is greater for wāhine Māori, Pacific women, and ethnic and migrant women. 

The event at Parliament this year, has been organised by Elizabeth Winterbee, a Nelson midwife who was born soon after the Equal Pay Act came into force, and is still waiting for equal pay. Elizabeth was on the oversight group of the Midwifery Pay Equity claim. Her union, MERAS, has twice taken legal action against the DHBs and the Ministry of Health – first because the employer refused to acknowledge GPs as a potential comparator for midwives, and secondly to challenge delays in progressing the midwives’ claim. MERAS is currently seeking mediation over issues with Te Whatu Ora in relation to comparators.

At the time of the first action, Elizabeth said: “I take on board this huge responsibility we have. There’s just one chance to do this, so it needs to be done right. The decisions we make today to fight for what is right, have long-term far-reaching consequences. I don’t want, on my conscience, for future midwives – 10, 20, 30 or more years ahead – to look back at the work we are doing now in 2021, and say we really blew it when we had the chance.”

Martha Coleman, a human rights and public law barrister and a Deputy Chairperson of the Human Rights Review Tribunal, will be speaking at the event. She is a member of CEVEP, the Coalition for Equal Value, Equal Pay, which is an expert group and part of a Pay Equity Coalition in Wellington, Auckland and other centres. Martha had long argued that the Equal Pay Act 1972 did provide for pay equity, i.e. equal pay for work of equal value, and in 2004 when the then Labour-Alliance Government looked to replace the Act, Martha and others campaigned against that as it could distinguish rights women had, but had not been used until the Terranova case.

Alison Eddy, NZ College of Midwives CE, will be speaking about the struggle by midwives to gain pay equity. The College of Midwives took a case in the High Court for “fair remuneration” for self-employed community midwives in 2015. A subsequent mediation agreement resulted in a co-design between the College on behalf of its members and the Ministry of Health. The outcome was rejected by the incoming Labour Government, and some time later the Ministry commissioned an external consultants’ report that has also been ignored. The College has now filed a class action in the Wellington High Court on behalf of 1300 self-employed community midwives claiming the Ministry has breached previous agreements.

Helen White, Labour List MP and former union lawyer. Helen has more than 25 years’ experience in employment law and has become a leading voice in advocating for workers’ rights. Over this time she has worked for a variety of unions including MERAS, the Midwives Union, where she assisted with the Midwifery Pay Equity claim for employed midwives.