Last dance (hopefully) for change
‘‘She works hard for the money. So hard for it, honey. She works hard for the money so you better treat her right.’’ Shakespeare? Chaucer, perhaps? Jane Austin? Sylvia Plath? No, my friends. These immortal lines were written by the late American disco diva, Donna Summer.
The song got to No 23 on the NZ pop charts in 1983. It was inspired by a chance encounter in the toilets of Chasen’s bistro in LA, where Summer met an exhausted restroom attendant called Onetta Johnson.
To make ends meet, Johnson worked two jobs, one of which involved cleaning the dunnies of the rich and famous. This particular day, she was so knackered, she’d fallen asleep in her bathroom chair.
An anthem against economic injustice, the song’s original video begins with a woman dragging herself along to a minimum wage job in a New York diner, and ends with a parade of female professionals – machinists, cleaners, policewomen, construction workers, nurses – dancing in the street, while Donna wails on a fire escape above.
It may surprise you to know that a new clip was shot for this song in Auckland recently, in a filmshoot convened by Eagle Vs Shark actor Loren Taylor. Miriama McDowell and Rachel Forman from Shortland Street shook their famous hips. Jennifer Ward-Lealand got down alongside Funny Girls comedians Laura Daniel and Jackie Van Beek.
Rising Labour Party star Jacinda Ardern was witnessed busting some dope moves beside newly minted Greens candidate, Chloe Swarbrick.
And choreographers led 200 rhythmically challenged female volunteers through formation dance steps as the cameras rolled.
Why, exactly? Because women are still being ripped off in the workplace. The Equal Pay Act was legislated in 1972 but has never been enforced. New Zealand women are paid, on average, 13 per cent less than their male counterparts for work of the same value. And based on the current rate of change, it’s going to take 45 years before women will be paid equally to men.
Or perhaps not. A pay parity case won by aged care worker Kristene Bartlett has forced the Government to belatedly set up a working group to tackle institutionalised underpayment and, hopefully, retrofit some teeth to an Equal Pay Act that has languished for 44 years.
It’s about time. The Government has announced its intention to make it easier for women to file equity claims with their employers, rather than having to go through the courts.
This new public participation video is part of a Council of Trade Unions campaign to make sure this promise is kept. Watch it at treatherright.co.nz.
I encourage every reader to do what they can to support gender pay equality. Do it for your mother, your sister, your daughter, yourself. Do it for Donna.
Women are still being ripped off. New Zealand women are paid, on average, 13 per cent less...for work of the same value.