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YOUR UNION
public sector wage freeze a bolt out of the blue
The Government’s announcement of a wage freeze for public sector workers earning more than $60,000 came as a bolt out of the blue for MERAS negotiators. When we received the DHBs offer the following day, we expected to be told there would be no pay rise for the next three years. Instead, the offer did include flat rate increases up to Grade 4 of the senior midwives’ pay scale in both 2021 and 2022.
JILL OVENS MERAS CO-LEADER (INDUSTRIAL)
The DHBs’ position to date has been absolutely no movement for senior midwives on Grade 5 and above, in line with the Government ban across the entire public sector on any pay rises for those earning above $100,000. The latest extension of the wage freeze allows for pay increases to address staffing shortages, such as those experienced by DHBs with issues recruiting and retaining midwives, but only for those earning between $60,000 and $100,000.
The Government has been arguing that there has been a blow-out in expenditure due to the Covid wage subsidy and other measures, and that any investment in public sector wages needs to go to the lowest paid.
MERAS had earlier told the DHBs we would accept flat rate increases as opposed to percentage increases, as these put comparatively more money in the hands of those starting out in their midwifery careers with DHBs. In the last round of negotiations, we successfully argued for new midwifery graduates to start on Step 2 of the pay scale. This lifted their pay from an annual salary of $49,449 before the last MECA increases to $59,222 from August 2020.
As of date of writing, the MERAS negotiating team was considering the offer and responding to the DHBs about areas where there has not been agreement. Despite the fact that the MERAS negotiations occurred before the wage freeze was extended, MERAS remains concerned about the impact of the Government’s position on public sector bargaining and wages.
Lowering the wage freeze to those earning between $60,000 and $100,000 impacts on professions such as teaching, nursing, and midwifery, all of which require a university degree and therefore a personal investment that includes substantial student debt. It will likely increase the gender pay gap, as the public sector is a significant employer of professions in this wage range that are predominantly performed by women.
According to the Employment Relations Act, all collective bargaining is supposed to be conducted in “good faith”, implying that both parties are open to each other’s claims. However, my experience in public sector negotiations, in both the health and education sectors over 26 years, is that their advocates will not go outside the expectations set by Government.
The DHBs have to submit any outcomes from negotiations through CEs and the Ministry, who can veto anything agreed at the table. In the last round, both NZNO and MERAS members had to take industrial action to force the DHBs to go beyond Government expectations.
MERAS has been held up by such processes for months. We initiated bargaining in December with the intention of settling before expiry on 31 January, but between December and March, the DHBs’ advocates have rescheduled meetings twice, and revoked “offers” made in January.
Since then, MERAS was told an offer had gone to a DHBs’ Workforce Management Group, and then to the Ministry for approval. We hope to settle by the end of May, and if so, members will then vote to ratify the proposed changes to the MECA, including pay rates and conditions.
DISPUTE OVER DHBS' PAY EQUITY PROCESS HEADS TO MEDIATION Mediation to resolve a dispute with the DHBs and Ministry over including employed general practitioners as a potential male comparator in the midwifery pay equity claim has been set down for Tuesday, 1 June.
The DHBs and MERAS were referred to mediation by the Employment Relations Authority after MERAS filed a dispute with the Authority on International Working Women’s Day, 8 March. Ironically the mediation date was agreed on International Midwives Day, 5 May.
MERAS has been arguing for inclusion of employed GPs as a male comparator since we started our pay equity process in 2018. In February 2019, this was approved by the bipartite oversight group comprising MERAS, NZNO, PSA and DHB representatives for both the nurses' and the midwives' pay equity claims.
L-R: MERAS workplace rep Rosie Sharman, Co-leader Jill Ovens and NRC rep Joyce Croft celebrate International Midwives Day at Kaitaia Hospital in the Far North.
Nurse practitioner members of NZNO also saw the logic of using GPs as a comparator. Both GPs and NPs have been used as male comparators in pay equity processes, such as the Ontario case and the College’s case for pay parity for LMC midwives. Unfortunately MERAS cannot use NPs as a potential comparator as they are part of the nurses' pay equity claim. A Ministry group chaired by Dr Ashley Bloomfield vetoed the use of GPs on the grounds that GPs are not male dominated. However, GPs were historically male dominated, arguably the source of their privilege in terms of pay.
In the meantime, the midwifery pay equity process has completed a second round of assessing the work of midwives from interviews conducted in 2019, this time using Equitable Job Evaluation (EJE), a tool developed by the Pay Equity Unit in early 2000. EJE allows for greater differentiation on factors such as knowledge and problem solving. Other factors include interpersonal and physical skills; responsibility for leadership, resources and services to people; emotional, sensory and physical demands, and working conditions.
The factors are weighted 45% each for skills and responsibilities, and 10% for demands. MERAS has raised concern that this does not put enough weighting on the exceptional demands of work typically performed by women, particularly the emotional demands.
A range of male-dominated occupations has also been assessed, and the next step is to compare the outcomes of the assessments to identify similar or comparable roles. Reports have been prepared on each occupational group’s remuneration and will be used to assess the extent of the undervaluation that can be attributed to gender.
MERAS will then negotiate with NZNO and the DHBs to establish any pay adjustment, which will be backdated to December 2019 and may be phased in over a period of time. We have been assured that the current wage freeze will not affect the pay equity process, as a separate fund has been set aside for this.What has become apparent is that not all of the pay disparities within the health sector can be directly attributed to gender. For example, sonographers are paid around $40,000 a year more than midwives, yet 70% of them are women. Using a gender equity tool, it is hard to see how midwives would come out below sonographers, who do a three-year health science degree and postgraduate diploma, and have fewer responsibilities and fewer emotional and physical demands.
Reasons put forward for their superior pay and conditions include competition with the private health sector and a shortage of sonographers. Scarcity has not worked for midwives in terms of increasing their pay, but arguably the holding down by the Ministry of LMC pay can be linked to suppressing the pay of employed midwives.
It may be that within health, those occupations that perform surgery and/or use expensive machinery are more highly valued than midwifery, with its kaupapa based on partnership with women, refinement of skills over time, use of hands as a diagnostic tool, distributive leadership and team work.
The fact that these features of the way women typically work are not currently valued in terms of pay equity has been raised by MERAS with the Public Services Commission, which is currently reviewing pay equity tools. square
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