A recommendation for a new bargaining process to settle gender equity pay claims might just be another stalling tactic to delay paying caregivers and other workers a fair wage, a University of Otago employment law expert says.
Prof Paul Roth was commenting on the recommendations of the Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Pay Principles, which were released this week.
The working group looked at how to resolve claims that certain jobs pay less because they are mostly done by women.
It was set up in response to the Kristine Bartlett case, which affects 50,000 aged-care workers.
Unions are trying to settle the Bartlett case separately, and were disappointed it was not settled ahead of the Budget.
"If I was a sceptical person, I would comment that this is just another delay in the way of paying a fair wage to among New Zealand's lowest-paid workers,'' Prof Roth said.
If the group's recommendations are accepted by the Government, employers would be required to follow a special bargaining process to settle such claims.
Prof Roth said the working group's recommendations left the Bartlett case facing uncertainty.
"What will happen to her case now that the Government is planning to substitute its own principles for those the Employment Court are supposed to formulate under the Equal Pay Act 1972 is not known.
"If a decision in her case is suspended pending change in the law, this raises an interesting constitutional issue involving the relationship between the courts and the other branches of government.''
Prof Roth said the recommendations potentially shifted industrial policy back to the "old days'' of an awards system, but "given all the hoops that must be jumped through, I'm yet to be convinced that any shift is real rather than just a go-through-the-motions process''.
"Although the legislation has not yet been developed, I think it needs some sort of 'short circuit' to get to the last stage, because we already know that collective bargaining isn't going to deliver a pay equity result,'' Prof Roth said.
In a statement, E Tu union welcomed the working group's recommendation of a bargaining process. E Tu assistant national secretary John Ryall said it was an opportunity for hundreds of thousands of women to gain pay rates free of historic gender bias.
If the Bartlett case was not resolved, E Tu would approach the Employment Court to set Ms Bartlett's pay rate based on the working group's principles, Mr Ryall said.
However, New Zealand Aged Care Association chief executive Simon Wallace said it was too early to say whether the working group's recommendations affected the Bartlett case negotiations.
Mr Wallace said the union had sought a $26 hourly rate for caregivers under the Bartlett case, and the parties were still in talks in an effort to prevent it from going back to court.
"Through our negotiation we have been living and breathing those [pay equity] principles [already] and in a sense our work has been very much about those principles,'' Mr Wallace said.
In a statement, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse said the Government would respond to the joint working group's recommendations "shortly''.
The working group involved unions, Business New Zealand and the States Services Commission.
Main points
•Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles has reported back to the Government
•Recommends bargaining process to resolve gender equity pay claims
•Potentially affects all female-dominated jobs.
•Government ministers considering group's recommendations
•Kristine Bartlett case is still seeking settlement in separate process
