Latest news with #PayEquityAct
Scoop
2 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Community Corrections Staff Gearing Up For Industrial Action
Press Release – PSA 'We will be looking to take industrial action if we do not get an improved offer from Corrections, and the mediation, set down for Wednesday 4 June, fails,' says Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pkenga … Community Corrections staff – who manage the 26,000 people the Department of Corrections is responsible for outside of prisons – are gearing up to take industrial action. Community Corrections staff – including Probation Officers and Electronic Monitoring staff – are frustrated with low pay and ballooning workloads further fuelled by anger over the Government's rushed changes to the Pay Equity Act, says Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi. 'We will be looking to take industrial action if we do not get an improved offer from Corrections, and the mediation, set down for Wednesday 4 June, fails,' Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections staff are 68% female, which falls just agonisingly short of the Government's new threshold requiring a workforce to be made up of 70% women to take a pay equity claim. 'Up until the recent reversal, Probation Officers were subject to a five-year long pay equity claim, they were found to be significantly undervalued and their claim was before the Employment Relations Authority to be settled, Fitzsimons says. 'With the ability to raise a pay equity claim cynically extinguished by the Government, underpaid Community Corrections workers will be expecting to see a significantly improved offer from Corrections,' Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections workers include probation officers, programme facilitators, electronic monitoring staff, community work supervisors, bail support officers, administration staff, and many others. On any given day, Community Corrections staff work with 70% of the people Correction is responsible for, about 26,000 people living in the community. These people include those: who have been released from prison; who are serving Community-based sentences; who are electronically monitored; and who are on electronic bail. PSA union Community Corrections members have been negotiating with Corrections since December and have been offered increases of around 1%, further embedding their low pay, Fitzsimons says. The PSA is balloting members on taking three escalating actions – a complete withdrawal of labour for two, then four then eight hours. An indicative poll of Delegates showed unanimous support for industrial action.
Scoop
3 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Community Corrections Staff Gearing Up For Industrial Action
Press Release – PSA 'We will be looking to take industrial action if we do not get an improved offer from Corrections, and the mediation, set down for Wednesday 4 June, fails,' says Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pkenga … Community Corrections staff – who manage the 26,000 people the Department of Corrections is responsible for outside of prisons – are gearing up to take industrial action. Community Corrections staff – including Probation Officers and Electronic Monitoring staff – are frustrated with low pay and ballooning workloads further fuelled by anger over the Government's rushed changes to the Pay Equity Act, says Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi. 'We will be looking to take industrial action if we do not get an improved offer from Corrections, and the mediation, set down for Wednesday 4 June, fails,' Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections staff are 68% female, which falls just agonisingly short of the Government's new threshold requiring a workforce to be made up of 70% women to take a pay equity claim. 'Up until the recent reversal, Probation Officers were subject to a five-year long pay equity claim, they were found to be significantly undervalued and their claim was before the Employment Relations Authority to be settled, Fitzsimons says. 'With the ability to raise a pay equity claim cynically extinguished by the Government, underpaid Community Corrections workers will be expecting to see a significantly improved offer from Corrections,' Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections workers include probation officers, programme facilitators, electronic monitoring staff, community work supervisors, bail support officers, administration staff, and many others. On any given day, Community Corrections staff work with 70% of the people Correction is responsible for, about 26,000 people living in the community. These people include those: who have been released from prison; who are serving Community-based sentences; who are electronically monitored; and who are on electronic bail. PSA union Community Corrections members have been negotiating with Corrections since December and have been offered increases of around 1%, further embedding their low pay, Fitzsimons says. The PSA is balloting members on taking three escalating actions – a complete withdrawal of labour for two, then four then eight hours. An indicative poll of Delegates showed unanimous support for industrial action.
Scoop
3 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Community Corrections Staff Gearing Up For Industrial Action
Community Corrections staff - who manage the 26,000 people the Department of Corrections is responsible for outside of prisons - are gearing up to take industrial action. Community Corrections staff - including Probation Officers and Electronic Monitoring staff - are frustrated with low pay and ballooning workloads further fuelled by anger over the Government's rushed changes to the Pay Equity Act, says Fleur Fitzsimons, National Secretary for the Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi. "We will be looking to take industrial action if we do not get an improved offer from Corrections, and the mediation, set down for Wednesday 4 June, fails," Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections staff are 68% female, which falls just agonisingly short of the Government's new threshold requiring a workforce to be made up of 70% women to take a pay equity claim. "Up until the recent reversal, Probation Officers were subject to a five-year long pay equity claim, they were found to be significantly undervalued and their claim was before the Employment Relations Authority to be settled, Fitzsimons says. "With the ability to raise a pay equity claim cynically extinguished by the Government, underpaid Community Corrections workers will be expecting to see a significantly improved offer from Corrections," Fitzsimons says. Community Corrections workers include probation officers, programme facilitators, electronic monitoring staff, community work supervisors, bail support officers, administration staff, and many others. On any given day, Community Corrections staff work with 70% of the people Correction is responsible for, about 26,000 people living in the community. These people include those: who have been released from prison; who are serving Community-based sentences; who are electronically monitored; and who are on electronic bail. PSA union Community Corrections members have been negotiating with Corrections since December and have been offered increases of around 1%, further embedding their low pay, Fitzsimons says. The PSA is balloting members on taking three escalating actions - a complete withdrawal of labour for two, then four then eight hours. An indicative poll of Delegates showed unanimous support for industrial action.
Scoop
7 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
PSA Supports Peoples' Select Committee On Undemocratic Pay Equity Changes
The PSA welcomes the launch today of a People's select committee to hear the views of women, pay equity experts and other New Zealanders on the Government's rushed changes to the Pay Equity Act. The legislation, which has slammed the brakes on pay equity claims for more than 150,000 underpaid, mainly female workers of was never signaled during the election campaign and rushed through the House under urgency without a select committee process. "The people whose livelihoods were seriously impacted by this undemocratic legislation should have had a chance to have their say, National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons says. "We call on the Government to do what's fair - repeal the law and let women, unions, employers and pay equity experts have their say in a proper select committee process. We want to be heard so that New Zealand women have a pay equity system that works. This is how a democracy is supposed to operate," Fitzsimons says. "We thank and acknowledge Former National MP Marilyn Waring and the other former MPs who will serve on the Select Committee. However, in a properly functioning democracy the Government Ministers responsible should have done what they are paid to do and set up a proper select committee process." "Women, unions and employers have spent hours and thousands of dollars working on the detailed hard graft of pay equity claims, and this work should be recognised by having their say in a proper select committee process. "The Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi PSA will support the work of the committee and be making a submission and that we will seek repeal of the 2025 amendments and instead a focus on speeding up settlements under the Act. "The changes to the Act are a betrayal of the principles of equality we assumed were now settled and it was just gutting when the betrayal became real on budget day. The changes were shocking and hurtful."
1News
08-05-2025
- Business
- 1News
National briefed its MPs two days prior to pay equity announcement
The National Party leadership briefed its MPs two days in advance of the Government's announcement to overhaul the pay equity system that makes it tougher for women to lodge claims. While the party caucus was meeting at 10am on Tuesday — an hour before Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden revealed the pay equity changes — Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis considered it significant enough to give its MPs more warning. The pay equity reforms would have inevitably raised questions with MPs about how to sell the legislative change, particularly to women voters, and how to answer media questions about the rationale behind the decision-making. National has been under fire for the changes, that will generate savings to the tune of billions of dollars, and help plug a big hole in the Budget to be released in two weeks time on May 22. Prime Minister says the primary consideration is to make sure that we've got a system that's much more workable. (Source: 1News) Speaking to reporters at Parliament on Thursday afternoon, the Finance Minister confirmed the Sunday briefing, and said officials had warned ministers of "legal risks" if the Government had talked about its intentions to make changes to pay equity laws ahead of the new legislation being passed. The risks were associated with "the fact there were already claims being progressed and, due to the impact that could have both on bargaining behaviour and the initiation of new claims," Willis said. On becoming Finance Minister in late 2023, Willis said she discovered the full forecast cost of pay equity claims. "That number blew my mind... it seemed disproportionate to what I thought Parliament had envisaged when it passed the Pay Equity Act in 2020. "I was advised that one of the factors that had led to an escalation in those costs was a decision by the previous Cabinet that they would indicate that they would fully meet the costs of claims made by non-government employers, where those employers were government funded. "And the impact of that was that it affected the bargaining approach of those employers, because essentially, they knew the government was paying the cheque," Willis said. At that time, Willis said the government was not putting aside funding contingencies, it had been put in forecasts "but not fully disclosed to the public what those figures were". As a result, in April last year a paper went to Cabinet that was intended to address the issue of non-government employers' pay equity issues being funded by the taxpayer. She said that was the first time Cabinet considered pay equity changes and that led to a Cabinet strategy committee being set up in December. "It was at that time Cabinet expressed a preference that we should deal with the underlying issues and amend the law. "It was an issue we explored over a number of months and ultimately we have made decisions coming out of a strategy meeting in December, and we took those decisions in due course." Willis said in March — two months ago — Cabinet signed off on the pay equity reforms announced this week. She defended the complete secrecy surrounding the Government's tightening of the regime designed to help women get fair pay. The decision to not produce a regulatory impact statement ahead of the law passing through urgency this week came down to the risk of it making its way into the public domain. "Once we had made the decision that we would amend the Act, we were aware that there were significant risks that if that information entered the public domain, then that could affect bargaining behaviour and legal behaviour. So we wanted to make sure that we progressed it rapidly," Willis said. Asked whether ACT had strong-armed National on going further on pay equity changes, Willis said "not at all". "For a number of months it was becoming clear to me that the way the pay equity scheme had developed had departed from its original, I think, very important intent, which was to correct for gender-based discrimination. "That is a very important goal. But it had become clear that other market-based factors had entered bargaining, that the incentives on some of the parties in those claims weren't fully aligned, that the costs had escalated well beyond what people had originally envisaged, and it was clear that those issues would require addressing in some way." In April last year, the Government changed the framework that "provided guidance about the circumstances in which government would pay for the cost of claims against private sector employers". "Our view was that the taxpayer has an obligation where the government employs someone that, if they have discriminated against them, then, yes, the government should pay for the settlement of that claim, but where it came to providers in the private sector, we believed the issues were more nuanced, and we were also concerned that, of course, the government wasn't at that bargaining table, so we weren't in a position to test the claims. "The advice that we'd had from officials was that they were very concerned with the way the process had evolved," Willis said.
