Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden has defended the pay equity law changes. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
A disability support worker affected by the pay equity law change is challenging ACT Minister Brooke van Velden to do her job for a week.
The Workplace Relations Minister's bill passed under urgency on Wednesday night and means 33 claims, representing thousands of workers, must be started again.
Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden has defended the changes, saying she cares about and values the work of women, and this will make the process for claims clearer.
Jo-Chanelle Pouwhare is among the affected claimants and told Checkpoint she believes the Minister would change her mind about whether they are fairly paid if she undertook their roles.
"It's just really misogynistic, what they've decided to do. It's not just a huge slap in the face for women, but the impacts [on] families," she said.
"They're worrying more [about] the economy. Look after the workforce, the woman in your workforce."
She said being a care and support worker for the disability sector means she encompasses different roles.
"People might be out there saying 'well get another job don't be social worker'. Well, why when this can be paid, we can get valued, in society we're needed," Pouwhare said.
"Look at the pandemic crisis that we face. It's ironic that all these pay equity claims, the 33 of them, majority of them were the essential workers."
In the organisation she works for, two of the pay scales are below the living wage.
"We've got level one, level two, level three, level four. Two of those levels [are] below the living wage. It could even be three."
Workers must train to get to the next pay scale, she said Level 1 sits just above minimum wage.
"That's an atrocity in itself. You wonder why people may not want to go to work," Pouwhare said.
At the top of the pay scale, the pay sits at $29.10 an hour, she said.
"I've been with this organisation for five years. However, I was able to cross credit my Bachelors," Pouwhare said.
"Somebody that's fresh into the industry has to start on a maybe $0.20 or $0.40 more than the minimum wage, then they have to train and go study, it's not funded."
While she was studying, Pouwhare had to take out a student loan.
"I was still paying it off when I started working here and I think the third year I was working here, I managed to pay it off and it was a huge chunk of my wage," Pouwhare said.
She challenges van Velden to work in her role for at least one to two weeks.
"I guarantee she'll go back, and they might re-think because I can guarantee she probably wouldn't last two days," Pouwhare said.
"For a woman to do that to other women, who's come from a privileged background, wouldn't even probably know what a struggle looks like.
"I challenge you to give it a go sister. If you can handle it and you still believe that these women in the care and support sectors, do in any of these claims, give it a go. You tell us how you can come up with a resolution to say that this is still just."
The majority of the people being impacted by the pay equity law change are Māori and Pasifika, she said.
She feels the government is flushing women's and their families lives down the toilets.
"To take those 33 claims and the trees they wasted on [with] the paper that was printed out for those 33 claims, she just uses it for toilet paper," Pouwhare said.
Van Velden said she still supported pay equity but the current thresholds were "a bit too loose".
"I'm a woman and I support women who work," van Velden told Midday Report.
"I also support removing gender based discriminations from our workforces but what I don't support are muddied laws and unclear laws.
"So these changes are better for all women who are working where we can genuinely say hand on heart that what they are finding with their claims is genuine gender based discrimination."
ACT leader David Seymour has congratulated van Velden, saying that she has saved the Budget for the government by billions of dollars through changing the law.
Pouwhare said Seymour's comments are another slap in the face.
"They've gone and given these landlords tax cuts, why can't they take the money from them?" Pouwhare said.
"This coalition government, they need to be renamed demolition, that's what they're doing to these women and their rights to a fair and just wage."
In this year's Budget, she said she wants the pay equity claims to be approved.
"It shouldn't have even gotten to this point where we have to fight. They should be recognising the significance of all these different female dominated employments [sic] out there."
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