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Equal Pay Amendment Act 2020 (2020 No 45).

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New Zealand
Equality of opportunity and treatment
2020-08-06
National
Law, Act

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The Act was designed to provide a practical and accessible process to raise and consider claims of systemic sex-based pay undervaluation in female-dominated occupations. In certain occupations where the work is, or was predominately performed by females, wages have been kept lower than occupations where the work has been performed predominately by men. It seeks to address inequality in wages arising out of the “going market rate” for employing people in those traditionally female dominated occupations not being a fair or equal rate, but a suppressed wage born out of historical pay discrimination.

New Zealand’s equal pay law provides that women and men should be paid the same for jobs of equal value, even if the jobs are different. Until now, workers have only been able to make claims for pay equity through the courts. The Equal Pay Amendment Act allows workers or unions to make a pay equity claim directly with their employer using a framework that is similar to New Zealand’s existing employment relations bargaining framework. By making court a last-resort, the proposed approach will lower the bar for workers or unions to raise a pay equity claim, and use a collaborative process
more familiar to unions and businesses.

Under the Act, employers, workers and unions will negotiate in good faith, with access to mediation and resolution services available if they are unable to agree.

The Amendment will take effect in late October 2020.

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