Pay Equity and Equal Employment Opportunity in New Zealand - Developments 2008/2010 and Evaluation

Abstract

This is the fourth in a series of LEW papers updating developments relating to pay equity and EEO and evaluating their impact. As with my previous papers, it focuses primarily on gender, but also discusses the overall situation and touches on issues related to ethnicity, age and disability. In the last two years the election of a National Government has led to an even less interventionist climate, with the abolition of the Pay and Employment Equity Unit in the Department of Labour and the cancellation of associated pay equity investigations. This paper will discuss these moves and what remains of the Unit’s work and other EEO initiatives. It will also examine recent evidence on discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, age, and disability, as well as reports/recommendations/actions for its elimination – including employer/union attempts to improve opportunity for recent migrants and people with disabilities. The situation for older workers will also be examined, with increasing labour force participation at 65+ observed and encouraged, despite considerable discrimination faced by this group. Finally, the paper will discuss the EEO impacts of the 90 day initial period in which the normal dismissal provisions of employment law are waived and other actual and foreshadowed changes to the law potentially reducing labour market protection.