New Zealand Conference on Pay and Employment Equity for Women.

• Author: Briar, Celia

The National Advisory Committee on Employment of Women (NACEW) hosted the New Zealand Conference on Pay and Employment Equity for Women, 28-29 June 2004, in Wellington. The purpose of the conference was to lift the debate on pay and employment equity for women in New Zealand and provide an opportunity to think about ways forward. The first day of the conference was focused on scene setting, and the second day on solutions.

Pay and employment equity is once again on the political agenda, and the profile of the invited speakers reflected this. Presenters included experts from the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States and Australia, as well as New Zealand's Associate Minister of Labour, Minister of Commerce, Chief Executive of the Department of Labour and Human Rights Commissioner. Around 200 people attended, from the public service, universities, the voluntary sector, independent research agencies and trade unions.

The road to employment equity has been long and tortuous, and still the end is not in sight. As Suzanne Snively, the chair of NACEW, pointed out in her opening address, New Zealand women have been campaigning for equal pay since women teachers demanded equal pay in 1893. Women public servants were at last granted equal pay for the same work as men in 1960, and this was extended to women working in the private sector by the Equal Pay Act 1972. However, when clerical workers lodged a claim for equal pay for work of equal value (pay equity) in 1985, the court did not consider it on the ground that the Act's implementation period was over. New Zealand had just ratified the International Labour Organization Conventions No. 100 on Equal Remuneration and No. 111 on Equal Employment Opportunity, and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discriminations Against Women (CEDAW). So, instead of appealing that decision, the Labour government developed new legislation with improved pay equity provisions. The Employment Equity Act was passed in 1990, and promptly repealed by the incoming National Government later the same year.

Pay equity was largely absent from the political agenda during the remainder of the 1990s. The 1999-2002 Labour-led coalition government did not take steps to replace the 1990 legislation, promising instead to make pay equity a project for its second term in office. In July 2002, the government put out a Ministry of Women's Affairs discussion document Next Steps Towards Employment Equity and...