As usual National proves itself to be no friend of women. Last night:
Bill for greater transparency in women’s pay discrimination voted down
A private member’s bill that would have provided greater evidence with which to fight gender pay discrimination in New Zealand was lost in Parliament tonight by 59 votes to 60.
Green MP Jan Logie, said the Equal Pay Amendment Bill had been supported by a large number of women and women’s organisations. She said it was a continuum of the fight that began with women’s right to vote and she hoped the House realised how frustrated women were.
…
The bill would have required employers to tick a box on existing pay records to state whether the employee is male or female. It would also have entitled employees or their representative access to the aggregated data of pay and gender for employees in their workplace doing the same kind of work. The information could have been given to an independent reviewer if the employer believed it would compromise confidentiality.The bill was designed to provide greater transparency of the gender pay gap in the interests of providing greater evidence to fight pay discrimination.
You will be shocked – shocked I say! – to hear who opposed the bill:
But it was opposed by National, Act, and United Future on the grounds it would add greater compliance to businesses and that it could compromise privacy.
I warned you!
Employers already have to keep pay records for six year recording their employees’ name, postal address, kind of work, type of agreement and expiry date, number of hours worked and pay for those hours in a pay period, method of calculation, and employment relations education leave taken.
So much for the burden of greater compliance.
These parties have voted the bill down because they will always choose employers over people.
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