Protest against Pay Equity Amendment Bill outside Rangitīkei MP office

Protest on May 9th. Photo / Massive

The rain didn’t stop protestors gathering outside the National MP for Rangitikei’s office, Suze Redmayne, furious she had voted in favour of the Pay Equity Amendment Bill.  

The bill, announced two weeks ago, cancels thirty-three ongoing pay equity claims, including two from the Tertiary Education Union (TEU). One of the TEU claims related to library and clerical workers in universities across the country. 

The protestors were frustrated over MP Redmayne’s vote in favour of the bill, mentioning the two years’ worth of work the TEU had in the ongoing claims.  

Te Awatea Ward, TEU co-branch president and Massey staff member, expressed devastation over the bill.  

She told Massive, “I think [Minister Brooke van Velden and Suze Redmayne] need to have a very good look at what they want for their daughters, sisters, granddaughters”.  

“As my own daughter said, ‘this is a stab in the back to all women and all workers in these low-paid areas’”.  

The legislation raises the threshold for proving work has been historically undervalued when making a pay equity claim. The government expects to save billions from the change. 

A Massey professor of Social Policy said how wide the news has spread: “Students came to me and said ‘how can the government do this, how can they pass a law under urgency like this?’”  

“We need to have a say”.  

Joy Helleren is a delegate from the NZ Nurses Organisation and a district nurse at the Palmerston North Hospital. She stressed the need for justice for everyone, just as nurses had won a claim under the previous Labour government.  

“We have proved that the work of care, [a job] predominantly done by women, is worth every cent. It was never meant to stop there.” 

MP Redmayne’s office was approached for comment.