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

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

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: We are still waiting for the pay equity law to
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  Speaker 2: be passed under urgency. Thought it would have happened by now,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: but the opposition is dragging it out in Parliament. One
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  Speaker 2: of the affected groups is midwives and New Zealand College
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  Speaker 2: of Midwives Chief Executive Allison Edio is with us.
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  Speaker 3: Now, Hey Allison, Hi there, how are you?
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I'm very well?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you?
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  Speaker 1: Now?
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  Speaker 2: Am I right in thinking that midwives are at various
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  Speaker 2: stages with us? Some will be affected but some will not.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. We have had pay group claim for
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  Speaker 3: employed midwives that the Health New Zealand employed ones. It
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  Speaker 3: was concluded some time ago, so that's been through the
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  Speaker 3: process and as far as we understand, that's a done deal,
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  Speaker 3: but you know, we don't know for sure until, as
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  Speaker 3: you say, the legislation hasn't been passed. There are some
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  Speaker 3: other midwives affected, of much the non Health New Zealand
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  Speaker 3: employed ones, much much smaller in number. But maris the
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  Speaker 3: Midwives Union as the best point of contact to really
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  Speaker 3: understand what that what it's meant for that workforce. We
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  Speaker 3: have advocacy in a role for the self employed midwives,
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  Speaker 3: so they are still publicly funded fully fully publicly funded service,
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  Speaker 3: but there's self employed to tax purposes, and we've had
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  Speaker 3: to take a completely different route. We've had to go
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  Speaker 3: through the High Court and we're waiting for their action
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  Speaker 3: to be decided by the judge. But we're pretty confident
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  Speaker 3: that this change in legislation won't impact that midwives.
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  Speaker 2: Who are what's the comparator for the midwives who are
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  Speaker 2: the midwives comparing themselves.
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  Speaker 3: To Ah, Well, you see that's the but I couldn't
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  Speaker 3: speak on behalf of the union. They would need to
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  Speaker 3: talk to you about for the employed midwives that we've
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  Speaker 3: had to do some comparative work for our case and
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  Speaker 3: we have used health sector workers as our comparators all
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  Speaker 3: the time. We haven't gone outside. We've used employed news practitioners. Employed.
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  Speaker 3: This is for self employed caseloading midwives. So they're the
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  Speaker 3: ones that we're gone call twenty four seven looking after
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  Speaker 3: a woman in the community, getting up in the middle
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  Speaker 3: of the night, you know, all of that, providing contientive care.
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  Speaker 3: So it's a really specialized job. There's a lot of
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  Speaker 3: responsibility and they have to managed all their own needs
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  Speaker 3: and business needs, you know, professional needs, because it's a
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  Speaker 3: self employed model. So we've looked at news practitioners, We've
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  Speaker 3: looked at employed caseloading midwives who do the same job
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  Speaker 3: that might be employed by an organization, and we've also
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  Speaker 3: used employed GPS. So we did a kind of a
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  Speaker 3: comparator across because no one's perfect. That's and that's the
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  Speaker 3: issue that this government's struggling with. It's really difficult to
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  Speaker 3: find a practition.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, news practices and GPS don't feel like outrageous.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like the librarians trying to compare
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  Speaker 2: themselves to engineers like that.
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  Speaker 3: That's no, no, we and I think you know we
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  Speaker 3: but yeah, I don't know. I couldn't comment on the
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  Speaker 3: employed midwives process.
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  Speaker 2: Some midwives are comparing themselves to plumbers. Have you heard that?
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  Speaker 3: No, I haven't heard that one. No, No, I couldn't.
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  Speaker 3: I couldn't. I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you.
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  Speaker 3: That's not been my experience.
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  Speaker 2: Because I would have argued that a plumber should be
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  Speaker 2: paid less than a midwife. What about you?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean I think this is the thing that Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: it's just that valuable works up. You know, That's what
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  Speaker 3: this is all about.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, now listen at the end of the day. Okay,
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  Speaker 2: So if the claim that you are involved in is successful,
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  Speaker 2: how much does it raise the pay of midwives.
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  Speaker 3: By a Well, look, we have to wait for the
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  Speaker 3: court to decide that. What would you know, we don't
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  Speaker 3: think we've reached fair and reasonable pay. We think we've
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  Speaker 3: got still got some way to go from the figas
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  Speaker 3: we've presented. But it's you know, I couldn't put a
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  Speaker 3: figar onte for you at this point. Sorry, okay, with confidence.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Allison, thanks very much, really appreciate Alison Eddie, New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand College of Midwives Chief Executive. I mean, midwives and
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  Speaker 2: plumbers both get called out at weird hours, both go
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  Speaker 2: to your house, both deal with lots of water, but
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  Speaker 2: one of them is dealing with life and death. So
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  Speaker 2: that's definitely a pay rise, right there, isn't it?
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