{"id":32563,"date":"2025-09-20T03:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T03:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/32563\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T03:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T03:01:09","slug":"pay-equity-protests-thousands-rally-nationwide-against-law-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/32563\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay equity protests: Thousands rally nationwide against law changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAnd it\u2019s indicative of this Government that don\u2019t want us to know what they\u2019re doing to save $12 billion to make it look like they\u2019re doing a good job \u2013 and actually they\u2019re just sort of robbing Peter to pay Paul.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PayPay equity protesters voice their opinions outside Parliament in May. Photo \/ RNZ, Marika Khabazi<\/p>\n

There were protests against the changes in May<\/a> when they were rushed into law. The changes made it harder to make a case for workers in professions dominated by women to have their pay increased in line with equivalent jobs done by men, stopping 33 existing claims in their tracks.<\/p>\n

One of the marchers in Christchurch, Lynn Broadbent, was part of a group that was granted pay equity for social workers. However, she said that with the law change, their wages were now falling behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe admin staff who also had claims in, who are at present being paid under the living wage, our company has pledged to keep that living wage \u2013 but we feel that that shouldn\u2019t have had to go to negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden said at the time<\/a> that under the previous rules, claims were \u201cable to progress without strong evidence of undervaluation\u201d or without proving the difference in pay was \u201cdue to sex-based discrimination or other factors\u201d.<\/p>\n

Van Velden said the changes would not only make the pay equity scheme \u201cworkable and sustainable\u201d but would also \u201csignificantly reduce costs to the Crown\u201d by about $2.7 billion a year.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon denied<\/a> the new regime was effectively \u201ccutting pay for women\u201d.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s nationwide day of action comes a day after the anniversary of women winning the right to vote in 1893.<\/p>\n

– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAnd it\u2019s indicative of this Government that don\u2019t want us to know what they\u2019re doing to save $12…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9092,4500,1137,8307,23158,111,43,139,69,2744,13316,16237,2742],"class_list":{"0":"post-32563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-against","9":"tag-changes","10":"tag-equity","11":"tag-law","12":"tag-nationwide","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-pay","18":"tag-protests","19":"tag-rally","20":"tag-thousands"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}