Pay Equity Claims for Library Workers in New Zealand: A ‘Workable’ Process?

Library work in Aotearoa New Zealand remains undervalued and underpaid, reflecting a wider structural devaluation of feminised, socially reproductive labour. The 2025 Equal Pay Amendment Bill restructured the Equal Pay Act 1972 by raising gender thresholds, removing review rights, and restricting multi-employer claims. This research examines how these changes affect the viability of pay equity litigation for library workers. The study conducts a qualitative content analysis of eight submissions to the People’s Select Committee on Pay Equity (PSCoPE), applying Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) to interpret how legislative reforms reproduce gendered inequities in feminised professions. Findings show that the Amendment Bill severely limits access to pay equity processes. Raising the gender threshold to 70 percent, prohibiting claim reviews, and eliminating multi-employer provisions disproportionately disadvantage library and other care-based sectors. The research concludes that the 2025 Amendment constitutes a structural rollback of pay equity in New Zealand. It exemplifies the state’s withdrawal from responsibility for sustaining social reproduction and the continuing undervaluation of feminised work. The study calls for renewed state accountability and recognition of library labour as essential to the reproduction of social and intellectual life.