On the podium at a nice hotel in Auckland, seven managers in almost identical smart-casual outfits were talking strategy at a company roadshow.
Their audience was mostly female employees. One recalls looking at the row of men on the stage in disbelief – you couldn’t get a much more stereotyped set of bosses, she recalls.
She was also quietly seething. She had found out another male colleague, who had been hired to do virtually the same job as hers, was being paid $65,000 a year more than she was. To add insult to injury, she was asked to redo work he had done: “He was very mediocre, and I don’t say that to be cruel, but a lot of the guys were. He was very, very average.”
The woman doesn’t believe her own ability was an issue, given that her performance reviews were always excellent, and she had been promoted several times. Yet she was paid only 80% of the salary band she and her male colleague came under, while he was paid 130%.
When she asked to be paid the same, she says, she was told: “You’ve got to pick your battles” or “Now’s not the right time.”
The woman, who doesn’t want to be named, left the company, and six years later is still furious about it. She is far from alone in her anger.
Jo Cribb and Dellwyn Stuart both know what it’s like to climb the corporate ladder. Both have also experienced pay discrimination on their way up.
Stuart, who is head of YWCA Auckland, remembers being taken aside by a female manager when she was working at male-dominated Carter Holt Harvey many years ago. She
