Fair pay for exploited women

By: Karolyn

4 Dec 2023

Fair pay for exploited women

Employers and business owners, who wish to extract maximum profits by paying their lowest ranked and most precariously employed workers a pittance, are the people most likely to welcome the new right wing coalition government’s repealing of NZ’s Fair Pay Agreement. Unsurprisingly, given the long history of women being an exploited sex-class, there tends to be a disproportionately high percentage of women in such low paid positions.  Brooke van Velden, “Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety and Minister of Internal Affairs – said she plans to repeal Fair Pay Agreements by Christmas, “to give business owners certainty as employers going into the new year””.[i]  This agreement became law at the end of last year. It “allows employers and employees to collectively bargain at an industry-wide level.” [ii]

This is particularly important for the likes of hospitality workers in an industry that employs a high proportion of women,[iii] especially as their union membership is low.[iv] It is therefore not surprising that, in the run-up to the October 2023 election, the NZ restauranteurs association quickly supported [v] the National and ACT parties’ policies to end Labour’s Fair Pay Agreement. As I said in my first post on NZ parties’ 2023 election policies, given the on-going sex pay gap, such policies would be harmful to women, especially those on low incomes.

A high proportion of women working in hospitality are employed in areas of food and beverages, and they tend to be in low paid jobs, with little hope of career progression. They are also very often precariously employed given that many tend to work part time because they juggle family caring responsibilities and paid work. Chloe Anne-King, organiser of the Raise the Bar (Hospo) Union,[vi] says,

“I have not worked for one hospitality employer that even had a basic understanding of our employment laws, and now that I’ve been advocating in it for about three to four years, every single day I am contacted by hospitality with workers that are being paid less than minimum wage.

“They’re enduring sexual harassment, bullying on shift. We are subjected to such unsafe working conditions.”[vii]

Such unacceptable abuse and exploitation of women does not seem a significant issue for the new government with its low proportion of women in top positions.  Brooke van Velden, who will oversee the axing of the Fair Play Agreement, shows a disregard for some crucial women’s issues in her dismissal of the lack of ethnic and ‘gender’ diversity in the government’s most powerful positions. She says it’s irrelevant because their policies will benefit all New Zealanders.[viii]

As with the removal of the Fair Pay Agreement, the right-wing government’s coalition agreements will hardly benefit all, and will actually cause further hardship for those already struggling to pay bills.  For instance, the increased shift in the balance of power and profit in the favour of landlords [ix] will be detrimental to the well-being of many low-income people, especially women, Māori, and Pasifika people. Single mothers will be particularly disadvantaged given the way they continue to be marginalised and demonised,[x] and the persistent ‘gender’ pay gap.

The Fair Pay Agreement would have gone a long way towards reducing the exploitation, underpayment and struggles of low income and precariously employed women. Cancelling it shows that the new right-wing government has given little consideration of the impacts on women of some of their soon-to-be-enacted policies.

Update 5 Dec 2023: Yesterday evening Newshub reported:

“Newshub has obtained a leaked Cabinet paper about the Coalition Government’s plans to repeal Fair Pay Agreements.  

It reveals the move would disproportionately impact women, Māori and Pasifika and young people and shows the Workplace Relations Minister is at odds with official advice.”

(Amelia Wade, Newshub, 4 Dec 2023, https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/12/fair-pay-agreements-leaked-cabinet-paper-reveals-workplace-relations-minister-brooke-van-velden-at-odds-with-official-advice.html)

Banner image: The Waitress by Adikos.  Licensed under CC BY 2.0 Deed. Attribution 2,0 Generic  https://openverse.org/image/216612b8-57cf-4e8b-abe0-eaacbe3e32c8?q=waitress

References

[i] 1 News, “Chlöe Swarbrick blasts ‘grab bag’ of ‘random’ policies from Govt”, 28 Nov 2023. https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/11/28/chloe-swarbrick-blasts-grab-bag-of-random-policies-from-govt/

[ii] 1 News, “Fair Pay Agreements Bill passes third reading in Parliament”, 26 oct 2022. https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/10/26/fair-pay-agreements-bill-passes-third-reading-in-parliament/

[iii] CTU, Unite, https://union.org.nz/unions/unite/ : Unite is a union for hospitality workers and, “Unite’s membership tends to be younger, predominantly women, with high proportions of Māori, Pasifika and migrant workers.”

[iv] Dr David Williamson & Professor Erling Rasmussen, AUT, “A Research Report on Tourism and Hospitality Employment Conditions in New Zealand”, 2022. See p47 on union membership. https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/26204-he-tangata-tourism-and-hospitality-workforce-survey

[v] Bill Hickman, RNZ, “Majority of restaurant owners want fair pay legislation repealed, survey finds”, 19 October 2023. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/500522/majority-of-restaurant-owners-want-fair-pay-legislation-repealed-survey-finds

[vi] Raise The Bar, Your Hospo Union, https://raisethebar.net.nz/

[vii] RNZ, Newshub, “’Ask for $30′: Hospitality workers have ‘massive bargaining’ power right now, advocate says”, 8 July 2021, https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2021/07/ask-for-30-hospitality-workers-have-massive-bargaining-power-right-now-advocate-says.html

[viii] Newshub, “Brooke van Velden unconcerned by lack of diversity in Government leadership”, 2 Dec 2023.  https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/12/brooke-van-velden-unconcerned-by-lack-of-diversity-in-government-leadership.html

[ix] RNZ, “Landlord tax breaks will blow out by $1b – CTU”, 29 Nov 2023, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/503476/landlord-tax-breaks-will-blow-out-by-1b-ctu

[x] Mako Mama – Mangopare Single Parents Project, https://www.makomamamangopare.nz/ ; Final Report, https://www.makomamamangopare.nz/s/Single-Parents-PMP-Report_FINAL_1-May.pdf

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