The Protect Pay Equity protest outside parliament yesterday was one of impassioned, determined resistance. Sarah Lang was in the crowd – these are her experiences and thoughts of the day.
• Sick And Tired of Double Standards
• Pay Me Like A Man
• It’s Time To Level The Playing Field
• Show Me The Money
• Pink Collar Deserves Equal Dollars
• van Velden’s War On Working Women
• Gender Traitor
• Say Sorry To Our Daughters
• Stop Making Everything Worse
• This Is 2025 Not 1925
• National Hates Anything That Works
• Vote Them Out
• Worst Government Ever
• Chris C-Words: Clueless, Calculated, Cold-hearted, Condescending
• Can’t Believe We Still Have To Protest This Fn Crap
• Women Don’t Forget
These were some of the words on the signs waved by protestors outside Parliament at the Budget Day Hui For Pay Equity at lunchtime yesterday. There were also many purple Protect Pay Equity signs. There was drumming on pots and pans. There was a chant: ‘What do we want? Pay equity. When do we want it? Now.” The feeling was of impassioned resistance.
While the government unveiled its so-called ‘No BS budget’ (which was actually full of BS) inside Parliament, more than 2000 people gathered outside at the hui to protest the government’s decision to gut the Equal Pay Act and destroy decades of progress towards achieving pay equity.
We won’t get into all the details but basically, the government’s Equal Pay Amendment Act increased the threshold for lodging pay-equity claims, making it incredibly hard (and in some cases, likely unachievable) for workers in female-dominated professions to show that they’re underpaid because of gender-based inequity. The amendment also totally quashed 33 claims in progress, undoing years of effort by these claimants (representing 180,000 workers). The legislation was retrospective (something unusual and frowned upon) and, to avoid public consultation, it was rushed through parliament under urgency (it wasn’t urgent).
Or perhaps it was urgent, Budget-wise. When the legislation was passed, Christopher Luxon said it had nothing to do with the budget. But guess what! Now they’re saying it is to do with, and I quote Nicola Willis, “significant Budget savings”. It’s going to save them $12.8 billion over the next four years! But at whose expense? An estimated 350,000 low-paid workers in female-dominated professions including nurses, teachers, social services workers, and library assistants.
With the government paying for its budget off the backs of hardworking women, it’s no wonder that there was palpable anger at the hui. Let’s reclaim that word – women are allowed to be angry!
The NZ Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) – an umbrella organisation of 27 affiliated unions representing more than 320,000 workers – organised the hui, helped by other unions. The Public Services Association (PSA) set up eight ‘walking bus’ zones around town, where people met to walk together to Parliament. They made some noise.
Meanwhile, E tū union (representing tens of thousands of workers across six industries) and the NZNO (New Zealand Nurses Organisation) union brought in people by bus. Legally, an employer must allow every union member they employ to attend at least one union meeting a year, on ‘ordinary pay’. They were no doubt thinking about that ordinary pay. And they weren’t alone. Women and men not personally affected, but also furious, joined them at the hui.
At a podium bearing the sign “Fight Back, Maranga Ake Together For Pay Equity”, Melissa Ansell-Bridges from the NZCTU addressed the crowd. “There’s a reason,” she said, “that they passed this legislation without a select committee, without talking to any of the 350,000 workers that this impacts. They’re ashamed. They know that New Zealanders think these changes are atrocious – and they know that, if they had opened up for consultation, they would have been told that really loudly. And then it would have been that much harder for them to balance their budget. We know that this is ultimately what this is about… it’s so transparent.”
Melissa introduced Kerri Nuku, President and Kaiwhakahaere of the NZ Nurses Organisation, which has had pay-equity claims wiped for nurses (including those in aged care, primary care, hospice, Plunket, community health, and laboratories) who wanted to be paid equally to their hospital counterparts. “Shock and anger,” Kerri said, “is what we heard from our members when, in an instant, all their hopes of [ending] gender discrimination that kept their wages low their entire working lives was in tatters. Overnight the claims, and many years of almost 10,000 members’ work – gone.”
Coming to the podium, disability support worker Jo-Chanelle Pouwhare said, gesturing to Parliament, “I have come here to remind this government that New Zealand was the first place in the world to allow women to vote. Yet this is what they’ve diminished us to. Shame on them. Some of our whānau out there can’t even buy their kids a present for their birthdays. Yet they [politicians] can ‘hold their heads up high’ and flush these equity claims down the toilet just like our indignity?” She added, “I created a C-word: corruptalition is what we’re dealing with… so let’s fight this fight, my friends. Let our voices be heard. This government has forgotten that during the Covid pandemic, we were the frontline workers. We put our lives on the line. We went to support the elderly. The teachers taught online. The nurses still had to wipe arses. We were essential workers – now we’re unessential.”
Kassie Hartendorp, director of community campaigning organisation ActionStation, read a love letter to her mum, a caregiver who now works for hospice. “When I heard that announcement, I thought this government must not value that sacred and precious work that you and other women here today do – that teaching, that supporting, that caring, that organising, that scheduling… We are all here – your daughters, nieces, your sisters, your mokos, your friends, your neighbours – even your sons, your husbands and your nephews – and people you don’t know. We all see what you do and we know your worth.”
Also speaking was Ripeka Lessels, President of NZEI Te Riu Roa: a union of over 50,000 education professionals including teachers, principals, support staff and learning-support specialists across early childhood, primary and area schools, and kura. She said “it’s so heartening to see all of you here today… with a fire in your belly, and where I come from when the fire is just a little flame it’s called ahi tāmaumau. We want that ahi tāmaumau to become an absolute burning fire that you can take from here today”.
No one from National or ACT wanted to see that ahi tāmaumau. They didn’t come out to speak to the crowd, but other political leaders did. Te Pāti Maori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said “We stand in solidarity. No one knows how it feels when we have come from being a cleaner in a hospital – carrying three jobs to keep our families ahead… You fought for our rights and I’m one of you who got here because you stood up and believed in the rights of us as wāhine Māori. I’m here personally as one of the descendants that you raised to promise my commitment to tautoko [support] all the allies in here who you have raised, to repeal and to hold the line against this revolting government that accuses us of not being civil.”
Coming to the podium, the Green Party’s workplace relations spokesperson Teanau Tuiono said “We were there in the House when this nasty piece of legislation hit those desks… The lowest-paid women workers in this country will be paying to balance the Budget today.”
Speaking briefly, Labour’s spokesperson for workplace relations and safety Jan Tinetti said: “two weeks ago we saw one of the most egregious attacks against women, when this government tried to silence your voices by putting through urgency the most terrible piece of legislation to cut pay equity in this country… They did not expect women to fight back. They did not expect unions to fight back. This is the power of women. This is the power of unions. We will not let them win. We will fight.”
Jan hands over to Labour’s deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni. “This is the first time,” she said, “that I can remember a protest of this significance happening on Budget Day. They hijacked pay equity from you, but you hijacked Budget Day from the government.” There’s a chainsaw, ironically, screeching in the background. “Can you hear the Budget doing the cutting right now?” Carmel says. We sure can. She asks us to chant loudly enough that the architects of this amendment might hear. “When workers’ rights are under attack? Stand up, fight back. When women’s rights are under attack? Stand up, fight back. When pay equity is under attack? Stand up, fight back.”
The politicians said they had to dash back into the debating chamber where the coalition politicians were about to read out the Budget.
As the event ended, people were “sung out” to the song “sisters are doing it for themselves” – an upbeat track, but also one that also reminded us that it’s women, again, who must do this mahi.
As a left, I saw two older wāhine Māori holding signs that said ‘Your Mothers Would Be Ashamed Of You (Brooke, Erica, Nicola, Judith)’, and ‘This Government Steals From The Needy To Give To The Greedy’; they had ‘I can’t believe we still have to do this’ body language.
On the bus home, I saw a wāhine of perhaps 65 holding a purple Protect Pay Equity sign. A girl of about seven, sitting across the aisle, asked about the sign. “It’s about equal pay for women no matter your background or colour – it affects us all.” The little girl nodded.
