This week, the People’s Select Committee on Pay Equity released their findings and they described the processes of planning for and enacting the Equal Pay Amendment 2025 as “a flagrant and significant abuse of power”.
The submissions made by library kaimahi at the hearings were moving and provided clear testimony of why pay equity changes are necessary.
“Pay equity is one of the most pressing issues for people working in the library and information sector,” says Laura Marshall, executive director of LIANZA (Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa Te Rau Herenga o Aotearoa).
The People’s Select Committee on Pay Equity found breaches of: the Regulatory Standards Act principles, the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee Guidelines, the New Zealand Bill of Rights, the Human Rights Act, ILO Convention 100, the International Covenants on Civil and Political, and Economic and Social Rights, CEDAW, the UN women’s Convention, and the Conventions on the Rights of People with Disabilities and the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).
Funded sector employers, charitable organisations and unions spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours, along with other resources, on the 33 cancelled claims, the report says.
“Pay equity claims for tertiary librarians and assistant librarians in some councils were cancelled.”
“Many library workers have spent four or more years gaining qualifications and are undertaking highly skilled and demanding, often stressful, work. Yet their pay doesn’t recognise this, because of historical gender inequity in their pay levels.
“Librarians are highly skilled information managers, researchers and programme deliverers. They manage a massive public resource and sizable budgets, and they educate and enhance the knowledge and skills of New Zealanders across the community and various sectors.
“A lack of pay equity has a ripple effect on libraries' ability to provide effective services, as it impacts their capacity to attract and retain staff.
Census figures show that around 6000 people are employed in library work in New Zealand, 78% of those employed identify as women.
Laura Marshall says that Christchurch and Auckland councils recognised this gender inequity by introducing pay increases following the claims' cancellation in 2025.
“We congratulate them for doing this, but there are many more library workers who are still being underpaid.”
School librarians settled their claim in late 2023 but will have to wait 10 years before they can be reviewed.
