Submission on the Draft Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill

Abstract

The Draft of the Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill as it stands creates barriers to women making equal pay claims, with a substantial onus on individual women to conduct research and write claims containing information that current policy makers in government and industry seldom research and write themselves. The process outlined also places greater onus on women than the employers who have discriminated against them. The Draft Bill potentially worsens the situation for women in their struggle for equal and equitable pay and work. We recommend that at the very least substantial changes be made to the Bill, but that consideration be made to retain the Equal Pay Act 1972 instead. We are particularly concerned about the onus of ‘merit’ in a claim, the comparators, and that the process appears to place employers in a more powerful position of decision making than the women making claims.