In May 2019 the PSA notified the six large urban councils that they believe library assistants working in local government suffer from illegal gender-based pay discrimination, and that they have an arguable equal pay claim under the Equal Pay Act 1972.
 | The PSA have asked these six councils (Auckland, Tauranga, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin) to set up a joint working group to resolve their claim using the 2017 Reconvened Joint Working Group Principles of Pay Equity. While this process only pertains to people doing the job of library assistants, the PSA believes that all local government workers who are working in female dominated occupations are likely to suffer from gender-based pay discrimination. This includes other library workers and administration and clerical workers. Their aim is to use equal pay settlements achieved in one occupation, or in another sector, to achieve equal pay across our membership. |
A bargaining committee has been established with representatives from the nominated councils. This group has met briefly with council representatives and is focused on developing a timeline and agreeing a Terms of Reference. At the culmination of this process our aim is that they have an agreed equal pay rate for library assistants that they will be able to take to each individual council and bargain for its implementation at that council. Parallel to this work, a campaign will be run to engage library assistants across all councils to gain widespread and public support for our case.
LIANZA supports this claim and will be working with the PSA over 2020 to promote their campaign, which began November 18th.
The PSA are asking library assistants across New Zealand, Aotearoa, to support this campaign. One thing that you can do right now is to help them educate the public about all the different tasks, roles and responsibilities that are part of a library assistant’s work. You can do this by taking a photo of yourself or a work colleague carrying out one of the many jobs of a library assistant i.e. running book clubs, assisting members of the public with IT issues, holiday programmes, after school care programmes, book Clubs; chess Clubs; knitting clubs; and craft sessions.
These photos will be used on PSA posters and their web page to raise awareness around our claim. Please send any photos to the PSA comms team at [email protected] with the subject line Libraries campaign.
LIANZA supports this claim and will be working with the PSA over 2020 to promote their campaign, which began November 18th.
The PSA are asking library assistants across New Zealand, Aotearoa, to support this campaign. One thing that you can do right now is to help them educate the public about all the different tasks, roles and responsibilities that are part of a library assistant’s work. You can do this by taking a photo of yourself or a work colleague carrying out one of the many jobs of a library assistant i.e. running book clubs, assisting members of the public with IT issues, holiday programmes, after school care programmes, book Clubs; chess Clubs; knitting clubs; and craft sessions.
These photos will be used on PSA posters and their web page to raise awareness around our claim. Please send any photos to the PSA comms team at [email protected] with the subject line Libraries campaign.
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