Alison Eddy: NZ College of Midwives Chief Executive on what the pay equity law changes mean for the sector

After many hours of debate, MPs have reached the final stage of the controversial pay equity legislation.

The Government introduced the Bill under urgency yesterday - which lifts the bar for claims of sex-based discrimination and forces existing claims to restart.

NZ College of Midwives Chief Executive Alison Eddy says it's unclear how much of the sector will be impacted.

"We have to wait for the court to decide that...we've still got some way to go." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Together.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
We are still waiting for the pay equity law to
be passed under urgency. Thought it would have happened by now,
but the opposition is dragging it out in Parliament. One
of the affected groups is midwives and New Zealand College
of Midwives Chief Executive Allison Edia.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Is with us.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Now, Hey Allison, hi there, how are you? I'm very well?
Thank you?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Now?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Am I right in thinking that midwives are at various
stages with us? Some will be affected but some will not.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah, that's right. We have had pay group claim for
employed midwives that the Health New Zealand employed ones. It
was concluded some time ago, so that's been through the
process and as far as we understand, that's a done deal,
but you know, we don't know for sure until, as
you say, the legislation hasn't been passed. There are some
other midwives affected, are much the non Health New Zealand

(00:44):
employed ones, much much smaller in number. But Maris the
Midwives Union is the best point of contact to really
understand that what it's meant for that work force. We
have advocacy in a role for the self employed midwives.
So there are still publicly undered fully public defunded service,
but there's self employed to tax purposes, and we've had
to take a completely different route. We've had to go

(01:05):
through the High Court and we're waiting for their action
to be decided by the judge. But we we're pretty
confident that this change in legislation won't impact that group
of midwives.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Who are what's the comparator for the midwives who are
the midwives comparing themselves to.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Ah, Well, you see that's but I couldn't speak on
behalf of the union. They would need to talk to
you about for the employed midwives that we've had to
do some comparative work for our case, and we have
used health sector workers as are comparators all the time.
We haven't gone outside. We've used employed news practitioners. Employed

(01:40):
this is for self employed caseloading midwives. So they're the
ones that we're gone call twenty four seven looking after
a woman in the community, getting up in the middle
of the night, you know, all of that, providing contientive care.
So it's a really specialized job. There's a lot of
responsibility and they have to manage all their own needs
and business needs, you know, professional needs because it's a
self employed model. So we've looked at news practitioners, we've

(02:01):
looked at employed caseloading midwives who do the same job
that might be employed by an organization. And we've also
used employed GPS. So we did a kind of a
comparator across. Because no one's perfect. That's and that's the
issue that this government's struggling with. It's really difficult to
find it.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Practitioners, I mean, news practices and GPS don't feel like outrageous.
I mean, it's not like the librarians trying to compare
themselves to engineers, like that's that's no.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
No, we and I think you know we but yeah,
I don't know. I couldn't comment on the employed midwives process. Fordwives.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Some some midwives are comparing themselves to plumbers. Have you
heard that?

Speaker 1 (02:36):
No, I haven't heard that one. No, No, I couldn't.
I couldn't. I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you.
That's not been my experience.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Because I would I would have argued that a plumber
should be paid less than a midwife.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
What about you, well, I mean I think this is
the thing that Yeah, it's just that value of women's
work stuff, you know, that's what this is all about
now at the.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
End of the day. Okay, So so if if the
claim that you are involved in is successful, how much
does it raise the pay of midwives by a.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Well, look, we have to wait for the court to
decide that. What you know, we don't think we've reached
fair and reasonable pay. We think we've still got somewhere
to go from the sigas we've presented. But it's you know,
I couldn't put a cigar onte for you at this point. Sorry, Okay,
with confidence.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, Allison, thanks very much, really appreciate Alison Eddie, New
Zealand College of Midwives Chief Executive. I mean, midwives and
plumbers both get called out at weird hours, both go
to your house, both deal with lots of water, but
one of them is dealing with life and death. So
that's definitely a pay rise, right there, isn't it? For
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