Signatures boost pay equity petition

Putiputi Temara.

Members of the education sector union NZEI have added 10,000 signatures to a petition on pay and employment equity which aims to eliminate the gender pay gap.

The signatures were presented to the petition sponsor – Labour MP Sue Moroney – by a group of school support staff who are at the frontline of the gender pay gap and pay inequity.

NZ’s gender pay gap of around 12 per cent is caused by the low pay of large occupational groups of women and the general undervaluing of women’s work.

School support staff are an almost completely female dominated workforce who are essential to schools and children’s education.

Many earn little more than the minimum wage yet their pay negotiations are stuck with the government offering them a zero per cent pay increase.

The government’s move to halt all further pay investigations also dealt support staff a blow, as a pay equity investigation had been in the pipeline for thousands of teacher aides around the country.

NZEI members have thrown their weight behind the petition to fight what appears to be a campaign by the government to undermine and undervalue the rights of women workers.

Putiputi Temara who is a specialist teacher aide at Pukeatua School in Wainuiomata, is one NZEI member who has stepped up to the pay equity challenge. She has collected more than 500 signatures.

“We are fighting for equal pay for the work we do with work of equal value and we are fighting for a fair deal. The government needs to value the work of support staff and of women,” she says.