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A group of charities and unions have backed a letter urging the Government to make pay gap reporting mandatory.
Forty unions and charities have united to urge lawmakers to make pay gap reporting mandatory in a bid to reduce poverty.
The conglomerate, led by MindTheGapNZ said the rapidly increasing cost of living was taking its toll on New Zealand families, and was being made worse by winter heating bills. They argued gender and ethnic pay gaps left too many people not being paid what they were worth.
In an open letter to the government they asked the Government to make pay gap reporting mandatory for businesses with more than 50 employees.
“Many women and people in our Māori, Pasifika and other ethnic communities earn much less than they would if they were a Pākehā man. That’s not fair. It’s not the Kiwi way. The playing field is tilted against too many.”
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The letter was supported by the likes of the Human Rights Commission, E tū, New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, FIRST Union, Pacifica Inc, and the Wellington and Auckland city missions.
While mandatory reporting is already in place for the New Zealand public service, just 55 out of an estimated 5000 companies with more than 50 employees report their gender pay gaps on MindTheGap’s Public Pay Gap Registry. Seven also report their Māori and Pasifika pay gaps.
Vic Crockford is the chief executive of another signatory, Community Housing Aotearoa-Ngā Wharerau o Aotearoa. Her organisation was working with large numbers of two-income households unable to afford rent, let alone aspire to home-ownership.
“The pay gap only makes this worse. We know that what gets measured, gets managed and we should be treating pay gaps like we treat health and safety – as a business-critical issue that impacts the wellbeing of our society.”
MindTheGap co-founder Dr Jo Cribb said overseas, pay gap reporting legislation quickly resulted in higher pay packets.
Analysis of seven countries’ experiences showed mandatory reporting could reduce gender pay gaps by between 20-40%. In a New Zealand context, it meant a woman earning the current median wage could receive $12.80 – $35.77 a week more.
