Happy Mother’s Day Pay Equity Warriors

Just before Mother’s Day this year the government did something unexpected and, in my view, unnecessarily cruel. They wiped away years of hard work, emotional labour and careful cooperation by cancelling 33 pay equity claims. No discussion, just gone. 

The point of these pay equity claims is that these 33 female dominated workforces can demonstrate that they have been and continue to be undervalued. Many women making the claims are also mothers, doing the lioness’s share of the unpaid domestic work. Whether they’re at home or in their paid work, they are persistently undervalued by our economic system. They have all been picked up, as though passive pieces on a chess board, and put back in their box. They’re not even back at their starting positions. They’re put away and have rework ahead even to get back to the starting point.

How is that for a mother’s day gift? A gift from the government that is meant to serve us all. What an indignity. Begin again if you dare.

Fair pay matters to everyone, not just those fighting for it. Female dominated work is always high in value, low on price. We have a strong dependency on these people to do what they do. Daily life would rapidly fall apart without our daycare and school teachers, nurses and midwives (to name a few). Their pay and their work matters to all of us. 

My heart is with each person from those 33 workforces this Mother’s Day, whether you’re a mother, father or not. Your paid work is intrinsically linked to the systemic undervalue we place on mothers and women. We’re known for our caring, nurturing qualities which continue to hold little to no value on The Treasury balance sheets, ever since we learned to collectively count. 

To everyone in those workforces, I wish you the support, love, care and mana that you deserve. You’re warriors fighting a system that needs reshaping. Although this is a dark chapter in the pay equity story, it’s not the end of the book. 

Happy Mother’s Day, pay equity warriors. Aro