A great leap backwards
When Jim Bolger's National government took power in New Zealand last October, it set about undoing a piece of Labour legislation which feminists had described as "one small progressive glimmer in the gloom of Labour's economic and industrial policy".
This was the 1990 Employment Equity Act, which was aimed at ensuring pay equity and equal opportunity for women. New Zealand Human Rights Commissioner Rae Julian described the reversal as a "great leap backwards"; others commented that it was another international "first" for New Zealand social policy, though hardly one to be proud of.
The latest issue of the New Zealand magazine Race Gender Class comments that, though compromised and cumbersome, the act promised to be more effective than overseas legislation in eventually delivering equal pay, for two reasons.
"Firstly, it allowed for group claims, not just for individuals as in Britain. Assessments could be applied to all women working in an occupation. Secondly, the New Zealand system of centralized industrial bargaining, like the Australian, was designed to apply negotiated award rates widely. Award rates adjusted for pay equity could actually deliver wage justice into the pockets of large numbers of low-paid women."
Now, that centralised system, which had kept typical "women's work" jobs at least better protected and better paid than in other comparable countries, is being dismantled. Notes Race Gender Class: "The repeal of the Employment Equity Act and the fragmentation of union protection through enterprise agreements and individual contracts is a major attack on women workers".
With the act's repeal, a series of "comparative worth" cases being prepared for evaluation will lapse. The 1990 legislation allowed for an independent agency which would compare typical women's jobs with typically male jobs in terms of their requirements for skill, responsibility, effort and conditions. Adjustment to wage rates could then be made through the system of national awards.
While the legislation had been watered down by compromises made under employer pressure, it was greeted as a great achievement by women, and women unionists in particular.
RGC outlines the process that opened up once the independent agency — the Employment Equity Commission — opened shop:
To ensure initial success, first claims had to be for small, and precisely definable groups clearly undervalued in comparison to the male occupations chosen. Most of the comparable male jobs were from the public sector, where precise information on actual rates and conditions was most easily obtained.
The first to file was the Nurses Union, which argued that practice nurses, the least unionised award group, could be compared to uniformed branch police and environmental health officers.
The New Zealand Clerical Workers Union compared medical receptionists with university caretakers and hospital electrical workers. The Distribution Workers claimed that department store cosmetics salespeople could be compared to spare auto-parts salespeople. Supermarket checkout supervisors could be compared with hospital head orderlies. These claims, and the Employment Equity Commission itself, will lapse.
At least, says RGC, the concept of pay equity did become a reality in legislation, however briefly. "That is a political advance and has increased the expectations of many women. For the unionists and feminists actively involved, it is back to campaign tactics."
By Tracy Sorensen