Ally Kingi: Teacher aide and Union Member on the future of a pay equity deal for teacher aides may fizzle out under newly introduced Government legislation

The future of a pay equity deal for teacher aides may fizzle out under newly introduced Government legislation. 

The proposed law, which would lift the threshold of pay equity claims of gender-discrimination, is expected to have its third reading this morning. 

A deal reached by union teacher aide members in 2020 is due to be reviewed - but may no longer go ahead. 

Union Member Ally Kingi told Ryan Bridge it was based on comparison between teacher aides and Corrections staff. 

She says it meticulously compared the general areas of responsibility for each group to the pay they received.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Government's cracking down on pay equity deals. It says they've
gotten out of control. They've gone beyond what was originally
intended by Parliament. Apples are being compared with oranges. It's
not working past it. Second reading these changes last night
all under urgency. Third reading today, teacher aides are interesting.
They are upset because they did a deal in twenty twenty,
They had a payout and it had a clause saying

(00:22):
there was a review to happen within three years. Now
that review will no longer go ahead. Alie Kingy is
with the NZDI Union with me this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Eli, Good morning, mor Dina Ryan, how are you doing good?

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Thank you? Just quickly explain for us. This is not
male male teacherrades getting paid more than female teacher ades.
This is about comparing a female dominated in profession with
male dominated ones.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Right, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
And you guys right now, because you obviously had a
settlement in twenty twenty, it has anything changed. I mean,
how do you know your or any worse off or
more discriminated against now than you were then.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
We're deliberately built into into pay equity that there will
be a review because we didn't want to just win.
Have the wen Ya. We've finally equalized and now that's
going to be built in. It ended up being there's
there's a difference again between the male dominated industries that

(01:30):
we were compared against the government said they've done quiet
review and there isn't and we've had a look at
it and we've seen this up to a seventeen percent discrepancy.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Seventeen percent, So you reconez, since you did the deal
three years four years ago. Well what are we now
five years ago that the number has crept to seventeen percent? Again,
that's what it's looking like here. How do you calculate that?
Who are you comparing teacherades too?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, that's the difficulty with what happened yesterday is it's like, oh,
they've compared these people to these people and it's completely outrageous.
It's not because when we originally did pay equity, we
compared it line by line by line against what the
male dominated comparators were doing with our knowledge, skills and responsibilities.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
But you compared teacher rades, did you not to civil engineers?

Speaker 2 (02:27):
No? No, we didn't at all. I'm not sure where
you got that information from. We ended up being mostly
compared to correction stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Right, who wear body vests and carry tasers. I mean
that they are very different jobs, are they not.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
No, we looked at things like caring for vulnerable people,
about the special needs that it took to care for
vulnerable people, about the risks to our own selves and
our work places. But the run of it was I'm
not sure we got the civil engineers information from that
might be from them.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
It was from the Ministry of Education website formed part
of your negotiations. That's cool.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
No, it was the correction.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
To the corrections officers. I mean, you say you faced
a similar a similar amount of danger. But if you're
dealing with I don't know, Brenton Tarrant versus a child,
I mean, it's it's different, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah. No, none of that is what would have come
from someone who had a full understanding of how pay
equity works.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
But no, no, I'm going off what you just told me.
You said you compared safety between corrections offices and teacher ades.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
No, no, that's not what I'm saying. What's being put
forth by the government is that, Oh, this thing compared
to that thing doesn't make any sense. Whatsoever. But what
we did was develop a really strong understanding of the
general areas of responsibility between the two groups. And we again,

(04:00):
as I said, we did it line by line of
what the responsibilities are. So what's being said now by
the government is a very like that's what that is,
and it's not it's not at all.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Okay, all right, Ellie, I appreciate you coming on the
program this morning. Elie Kingy, teacher aide and MZDI support
staff negotiations team leader with.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Us for more from early edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
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