Super-claim filed for care work pay equity

Four unions acting on behalf of care and support workers are filing a second, larger claim to cover the entire care workforce.  

The original claim was filed in July 2022 by three unions and covered workers across the aged care sector, disability and mental health and addictions workforce, by naming 15 of the largest employers.  

It covered about 30 percent of the workforce, but under the previous government’s funded framework policy, acceptance of the claim would benefit all workers.  

However, there is no guarantee the new government will have the same policy.  

Public Service Association assistant secretary Melissa Woolley said a second claim was a way to ensure all workers got what they deserved.  

“The funded framework was the mechanism to deliver out an extension to a whole group of workers and with the uncertainty up in the air we wanted to protect our members interests around getting paid equity.  

“It’s always been our goal that 65,000 care and support workers receive pay equity at the same time and we’re utilising this lever to ensure that is the case.” 

The first claim has been stalled while Te Whatu Ora conducts a review of work underpinning the settlement. 

Woolley said unions were not engaging with that review, describing it as a stall tactic. 

“We have full trust in the pay equity process that we followed, we followed all of the Public Service Commission guidance on the pay equity process.  

“The whole intent of Te Whatu Ora doing the review was to stall this process, or to come up with preconceived ideas about the outcomes that we’ve reached.”

The Care and Support Workers Pay Equity Settlement Act is due to end on December 31, meaning any claims need to be filed before the end of the year. 

The Act was introduced after a pay equity deal was reached in 2017 to rectify the chronic underinvestment in the predominately female care and support workforce. 

However, the agreement included a provision a new claim could not be brought for five years.  

If it expires without a replacement or settlement in place, wages in the care sector would lose the wage increase protections benefited from for six years, but the claim itself would not expire.