New Zealand has an Equal Pay Act that makes it illegal for companies to not offer the same pay, terms of employment, training and promotions based on sex, according to Karanina Sumeo, equal employment opportunities commissioner. “However, the lack of data to compare salaries and wages makes it difficult to bring an equal pay claim against an employer, because employees don’t have access to this information,” Sumeo writes.
Māori, Pacific, disabled, and ethnic minority women have a wider pay gap compared with men, and that is even higher than the reported 9% gender pay gap for women in general. When Sumeo, herself a Pacific woman, learned that she was paid less than men in a comparable role, she knew how to challenge it and convince her managers, the human resources department and her union that her claim was valid. The issue was resolved in five to six months and made a big impact on her ability to provide for her children as a single mother.
“My concern is that women less aware of their rights, unfamiliar with the system, struggling with English, with limited literacy, desperate to hold onto their jobs, or with low confidence, may struggle to remedy the situation, with or without a union to support them,” she writes.