No Pay and No Say for Women Workers

The Government’s axing of the pay-equity inquiries and the absence of women’s input to the Jobs Summit show serious disrespect to half of the workforce, said Green Party Women’s Affairs spokesperson Catherine Delahunty today.

“The National Government has confirmed that it is only working for half the population. I asked the Prime Minister in Parliament yesterday what percentage of organisations invited to the Jobs Summit were women’s organisations. Bill English replied that he didn’t know and that the Jobs Summit was not intended to be “representational”.”

The Government should tell New Zealanders who will be represented at the summit. Who has he invited? Is this a jobs for the boys meeting on 27 February?

Ms Delahunty said it was vital that women involved in job creation and workplace issues were invited to the Summit because they are often the first group to struggle in a recession.

“There is a lot of evidence that poverty has the greatest impact on women and children, and scrapping the inquiries into pay-equity and ignoring women’s concerns is going to make this worse.”

Department of Labour figures show that women earn only 78.9% of men’s average weekly earnings. Women make up 46.7% of the workforce but despite this the Government is now going backwards on pay equity.

“We call on the Government to reverse their absurd decision on the overdue inquiries on pay equity and to ensure that women’s organisations are part of the Jobs Summit,” Ms Delahunty said.