Yesterday in a coordinated effort a message was faxed, emailed and snail-mailed to New Zealand’s Minister of State Services, Tony Ryall, who recently canceled two inquires into pay inequality in state sector jobs. The inquiries were aimed at female social workers at Child, Youth and Family (New Zealand’s child welfare services) who are paid 9.5 per cent less than their male co-workers, and at inequities in the pay of mainly female school support workers. Ryall Told the New Zealand Herald that the investigations would “generate an additional form of remuneration pressure that is unaffordable in the current economic and fiscal environment”. The ‘faxathon’ campaign was organised by the feminist blog The Hand Mirror who called the action “one modest opportunity for you to do something for the good of all woman- (and man-)kind, around the issue of pay equity.”
Brenda Pilott, national secretary of the Public Service Association, said the moves were a “slap in the face for social workers” and “a really bad message to women workers.” “The Government is saying that issues of inequity that are well documented are not important enough to be fixed,”

The wider labour movement is also highlighting the issue of pay inequality in the lead up to international working womens day tomorrow. Council of Trade Unions President Helen Kelly stated in a press release;

Working women must be vigilant that their quest for parity and opportunity in the workplace does not fall victim to the recession. [U]nions everywhere are very concerned about how the economic crisis will impact on women’s employment.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has reported that pay inequity worldwide is higher than official government figures suggest, and that women are bearing a disproportionate brunt of job losses in the recession.