Midwife Born Soon After Equal Pay Act Came Into Force Still Waits For Pay Equity

In Aotearoa in October 1972, poet JK Baxter died, Donny Osmond had the #1 hit with Puppy Love, Norman Kirk was about to be elected as Prime Minister, and the Equal Pay Act came into being.

50 years ago on October 20th, the Act was passed “to make provision for the removal and prevention of discrimination, based on the sex of the employees, in the rates of remuneration of males and females in paid employment”.

Nelson midwife, Elizabeth Winterbee, an organiser of tomorrow’s commemoration event on Parliament grounds (Thursday 1-2pm), was born not long after the Act was passed. She is still waiting for pay equality.

“New Zealand’s national gender pay gap has been reducing over the past 25 years, but progress has slowed in the last five years,” she says. “For any country in the 21st century this is wrong and in Aotearoa New Zealand with our suffrage history and a number of high-profile women in very senior roles, it’s inexcusable.”

Ms Winterbee was on the oversight group of the Midwifery Pay Equity claim. Her union, MERAS (the Midwives’ Union), has twice taken legal action against the DHBs and the Ministry of Health – firstly because the employer refused to acknowledge GPs as a potential comparator for midwives, and secondly to challenge delays in progressing the midwives’ claim.

MERAS is currently seeking mediation over issues with Te Whatu Ora in relation to comparators.

Union co-leader - Industrial, Jill Ovens, says women have historically been employed in a limited range of occupations, where the tasks and skills required are seen as an extension of traditional unpaid work of women.

“So called “Women’s work” has historically been underpaid because our work is not valued as highly as work predominantly performed by men,” she says. “Midwives have been underpaid and undervalued because they are almost all women and they were seen as a sub-set of nurses, who also suffer from historical undervaluing. Here we are fifty years after the Act was passed to stop this discrimination and it’s still happening. That’s beyond disappointing.”

Elizabeth Winterbee agrees.

“It may be fifty years on, but we will continue to fight for what is right because if we don’t, there are long-term far-reaching consequences. I don’t want, on my conscience, for future midwives – 10, 20, 30 or more years ahead – to look back and realise we could have done more,” she says.