Thursday 13 May 2004

INDUSTRIAL/POLITICAL REPORTERS

IRD Not Walking The Govt’s Talk On Pay Equity

''The Inland Revenue Department recent pay update which offered 8.8% to team leaders and only 1.1% to many team members has reinforced the very effect that the Government’s Pay Equity Taskforce is fighting,'' said Martin Cooney, Organiser of the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE).

“The great majority of the IRD staff who got the lowest pay offers were female while the higher pay mostly went to males who tend to dominate management positions,” said Martin Cooney. “Staff working in clerical and call center areas and as basic officers were told in an IRD letter their low pay raise was fair as it was the same as what similar workers got in other Government Departments.”

“Now these low paid workers hear promises from the Government that this is wrong and unfair – our members would like the Government to put its money where its mouth is.”

“The IRD use the ‘market’ as the basis of the arguments for who gets pay rises. It is a fact that the market rate for the lowest paid is often linked to jobs that are female dominated,” said Martin Cooney.

“The IRD settled on a deal which included vast disparity in pay between the lower paid and higher paid IRD staff,” said Martin Cooney. “IRD staff are stuck with these rates which have just made the so called gender gap worse by about 7%.”

ENDS

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