Pay Equity FAQs
What is pay equity?
Pay equity is about people being paid the same for work that is the same or substantially similar, or different but of equal value.
Pay inequity is caused by systemic sex-based discrimination leading to the undervaluation of work done in female-dominated occupations.
What kind of skills and duties are more likely to have been undervalued?
‘Women’s Work’ - Less visible skills, based on a gender assumption about the ‘innate’ skills that come naturally to females – e.g., relationship building, patience, emotional awareness, dexterity.
Paid ‘women’s work’ reflects the work done mostly by women in the domestic sphere – e.g., childcare, housekeeping, care/support work.
The skills required and the work itself are often undervalued in our society, e.g. ‘It’s just babysitting’.
What’s the difference between pay equity, equal pay, and pay parity?
Pay Equity – people are paid the same for work that requires similar levels of skill, experience, duties, and responsibility.
Equal Pay – the same pay for doing the same work.
Pay Parity – the same pay for the same work across different employers, organisations, and workplaces (e.g., ECE versus kindergarten).
How does the pay equity claim interact with collective bargaining?
The pay equity process, although it includes bargaining for a settlement, is completely separate from our collective negotiations process.
There should not be any interaction between the pay equity settlement and our collective negotiations for specific collective agreements.
The outcome of the pay equity settlement may lead to a variation in the collective agreement (for example, with a new base scale or allowances to rectify any undervaluation).
What legislation is pay equity connected to?
Equal Pay Act 1972, amended in 2020.
What are the stages of the pay equity process?
Three phases: Raising, Assessing, Settling. These phases are summarised below, with updates to show current progress.
Raising:
Following the 2020 amendment to the Equal Pay Act 1972, two claims were raised for teachers – by NZEI Te Riu Roa and PPTA Te Wehengarua.
These were consolidated by the Secretary for Education because the nature of the work was considered to be the same or substantially similar.
The parties to the claim are PPTA Te Wehengarua, NZEI Te Riu Roa, Ministry of Education and 524+ private and community-based early childhood employers.
Arguability was agreed, based on the demographics of the sector.
Multi-Employer Pay Equity Process Agreement (MEPA) and Terms of Reference written.
Assessing:
In 2023, PPTA and NZEI Te Riu Roa interviewing teams made up of member volunteers worked alongside Ministry of Education analysts to complete over 290 interviews with teachers and leaders across the sector.
Employee and supervisor interviews were conducted – to capture the full scope of mahi that teachers and leaders are doing in kura and schools. The transcripts were reviewed and finalised, through a quality assurance process.
The data from the interviews has been analysed and collated into a General Areas of Responsibility (GARs) report. The GARs report will be shared with all claimants for feedback in September/October 2024. Further information can be sought if needed if there are found to be any gaps in the data. This process is known as ‘Sector Validation’.
Next steps in the assessment phase:
- Selection of comparators from male-dominated professions and/or settled pay equity claims. Comparator interviews will be conducted, where needed.
- A process called ‘factor scoring’ will take the qualitative data from the claimant and comparator interview transcripts. Using the PEAM (Pay Equity Aromatawai Mahi) tool, these will be ‘scored’ into quantitative data. Pay and conditions of claimants and comparators will be compared.
- Proving or disproving an undervaluation of teachers.
Settling:
The final stage is a bargaining process between the unions and the employers (Secretary for Education and ECE employers) to come to a settlement.
Pay Equity Interviews
In 2023, representatives from PPTA Te Wehengarua and NZEI Te Riu Roa worked with Ministry of Education analysts to conduct interviews across the education sector, including secondary and area schools, Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu and in community education. Over 290 interviews were conducted across the sector.
How were the schools and interviewees selected for interviews?
The schools were randomly selected from specific demographics, to ensure there was an equitable spread across regions, settings, and equity index levels.
This included interviews in ECE (private and community), kura, state and state-integrated primary, area and secondary schools, community education programmes (ACE and OOHMA), English and Māori medium settings, RTLB clusters etc.
What was the timeline of the interview process?
The interviews started in late Term 4 2022 (ECE) and Term 1 2023 (kura kaupapa, primary, area and secondary). Almost all of the interviews were concluded by the end of 2023.
What were they trying to identify with the interviews?
Skills:
- knowledge
- problem solving
- planning/organising
- interpersonal and communication
- bi- and multi-cultural
- physical
Working conditions
Responsibilities:
- people leadership – how many adults do you directly lead, how many do you influence?
- resources – physical, digital (curriculum, private records), financial
- organisational outcomes – e.g. assessment outcomes, pastoral care
- services to people – the ways that you meet the needs of students, whānau and the community
Demands:
- emotional
- physical
- sensory
What is Sector Validation?
Sector validation is the process of coming back to the teaching sector to confirm our findings, and to identify if anything is missing. The data from the 290 interviews conducted in 2023 has been collated and sorted into 10 key themes, in a report called ‘General Areas of Responsibility’ (GARs). The report describes the responsibilities (tasks and activities) of kaiako | teachers and leaders in early learning, primary, secondary and kura settings.
We are asking you to read through the report, and then identify if anything is missing or confirm you agree with the findings.
The sector validation consultation will run from 9 September to 18 October 2024.
The responsibilities identified from the interviews have been arranged into key themes. There are 10 themes in total. The 10th theme specifically describes the additional responsibilities of kaiako working in Kaupapa Māori and Māori-Medium settings, as well as kaiako Māori in kura auraki.
How to access the GARs and Survey
The GARs document and survey will be available on the Ministry of Education website from 9 September 2024. PPTA and NZEI Te Riu Roa will share the link via communications with members and claimants once the consultation has opened.
To provide feedback on the GARs you will need to:
- Read the GARs report (you can read it online or download the report).
- Take notes and identify anything that is missing.
- Share your response to the GARs by completing the survey.
In the survey you will be asked to confirm or identify what is missing from each area of responsibility.
We expect it could take up to 3 hours to read the report, take notes and provide a response. You do not need to provide an answer for every area and may choose to focus only some areas of responsibilities.
You can complete the survey as an individual or as a group. Group responses will need to include how many people are in the group, contact details of at least one person, and that they consent to being contacted.
Group responses can be informal or more formal such as network, special interest or management groups.
The survey will be open until 5pm, 18 October 2024.
Please note, we can only accept GARs feedback through the survey.
What if there is more than one teacher in my household and we share a computer?
The survey function will recognise the IP address of your computer, and only let one person complete the survey from that device. However, the survey is fully accessible from other devices, including cell phones.
You could also consider submitting as a group (as long as one person includes their contact details).
Why are contact details required when completing the survey?
If additional responsibilities are identified through the survey, further interviews may be required. Please add your contact details to the survey, so that Ministry of Education analysts can contact you if they believe an interview should be scheduled based on your feedback.
Your contact details will not be used or shared for any other purpose. You may choose not to opt into taking part in an interview if approached following the survey.
If I do consent to an interview, what does that mean?
A Ministry of Education analyst may contact you to schedule a Pay Equity employee interview. These interviews take 90 minutes, and use a questionnaire to capture the skills, working conditions, responsibilities and demands of your role. The interview is likely to take place online, during school hours. Your principal will be asked to release you during the interview.
In most cases, a member of an interview team from PPTA Te Wehengarua will be present in the interview, alongside a Ministry of Education analyst.
I’ve been selected for an interview. What should I be prepared to talk about? Any tips?
It’s really important for you to think about all of the work that you do, and all of the skills, responsibilities, duties and demands that this work requires. You might want to consider reflecting on your work over a few days or a week, considering the full range of tasks that you do and what kind of knowledge, training, and skills those tasks require. What duties and responsibilities do you have? What are the emotional, physical, and sensory demands on you?
During the interview, try to break down any school-related jargon and describe what each activity or responsibility involves. For example, instead of saying “I stand up and teach” or “I do moderation”, think about the specific elements that make up these aspects of your role, what skills they require and your level of responsibility for ensuring the success of those tasks.
After the interview, there will be time for you to check the transcript and add or amend anything as needed. It is hard to fit all the information into the 90-minute interviews, so feel free to add any further information when you have a chance to reflect and check through what has been written, as well as clarifying anything that may not have been fully captured.
Why will there also be a supervisor interview? Is this an appraisal?
Your supervisor will be interviewed as another way of capturing the full scope of the work that you do in your role. It is a chance for them to identify any aspects of your role that you may not have recognised or shared with the interviewer. It is not linked to any form of appraisal or assessment.
What happens to the data?
The information from the transcripts is anonymised to ensure that no employees, families, students, or schools can be identified. During the process, the transcripts are stored in one secure online location, and unions and the Ministry of Education follow strict processes to ensure data security.
Once the claim is settled, the anonymised data may be added to a collective secure resource, where it can be used as a comparator for future pay equity claims.
You can ask for your interview data to be removed at any stage if you no longer wish to participate in the claim.
How will the comparators be selected?
The Ministry of Education pay equity team and the unions, alongside ECE steering group representatives, will consider which comparators could be used. These will be male-dominated professions but could also include female-dominated professions whose pay equity claims have been settled.
In the process to select comparators, we are looking at work that is the same or substantially similar, or work that is different, but requires the same or substantially similar skills and experience, responsibilities, working conditions, and/or degrees of effort, but that is free from gender-based undervaluation. More than one comparator will be needed, to cover the breadth of roles covered by the claim, and range of responsibilities within the scope of teachers’ work. We are anticipating needing at least 3-5 comparators.
It is not a like for like comparison, so the comparators can come from a range of backgrounds.
What pay equity tool is being used?
The PEAM tool - Pay Equity Aromatawai Mahi (work assessment).
This was developed for pay equity assessments in the education sector and used by the Ministry of Education and NZEI Te Riu Roa in several education claims.
The PEAM tool is used to provide scores for each ‘factor’ (for example, responsibility for people leadership) that are used to represent the value of the work that is being done. This enables the parties to convert qualitative data from the interview transcripts into quantitative data (scores). These same factors are assessed for the comparators, and factor scores are compared with regard to how they are valued with pay and conditions in collective agreements.
How long will the Pay Equity process take?
Pay Equity processes are long and complex. Many settlements have taken three to five years.
The Teachers’ Pay Equity Claim is the largest pay equity claim raised in the education sector to date, on behalf of over 90,000 employees. It is also a multi-employer (Ministry of Education and 524+ ECE employers) and multi-union (PPTA Te Wehengarua and NZEI Te Riu Roa) claim, which adds layers of complication. This required a MEPA (multi-employer pay equity process agreement) to be formed, along with a Terms of Reference to be agreed between unions and employers, before the assessment could start.
Who would be covered by the teachers’ pay equity settlement?
Currently, the claim covers over 90,000 workers in the education sector. Those who teach, those who lead teachers and anyone doing ‘the same or substantially similar work’. This includes ECE, Kindergarten, state and state-integrated Primary and Secondary Teachers and senior leaders (including principals). Also, Early Intervention teachers (who work directly for the Ministry of Education), RTLBs, some Community Education employees (e.g., tutors and leaders), untrained teachers/LATs.
Is there any guarantee that an undervaluation or inequity will be identified?
There is no guarantee with this process. The most important factor is ensuring that we collect enough quality data to show the full scope of the work that teachers are doing. The outcome is guided by the data that can be used to prove an undervaluation. This is why the interview data from schools are crucially important.