Another Pacific health worker said that she found the experience of talking to her employer confrontational and that her “employers have tried to talk me down by stating an unwillingness to discuss pay or sending a contract at the bottom of the pay bracket” (S158). These experiences are not confined to healthcare – one construction worker told us he “was not taken seriously when I talked to managers” (S200). People not only spoke about the barriers with language and how their employer communicated with them but also the difficulty of navigating existing communication channels. One of the main difficulties was around not knowing who to talk to in order to raise a concern – “I didn’t know who to talk to about it” (S428). In the case of Pacific workers in the agriculture sector who are usually employed as subcontractors, many observed that they had to always communicate through a middleman, only to be told conflicting things. One Pacific agriculture worker told us: Sometimes you have to talk to the employer, and the employer talk to the company, and from the employer to the company, … employer back to us, so that line of communication is broken. So the employer will just come back and say, hey, the company say this one. And someone from the company will come and talk to us, they give us a different story. (T005) These negative experiences can lead to a lack of confidence in Pacific workers when they need to communicate with their employer. One Pacific worker from the hospitality sector said: Negotiating pay is something that is never talked about, or if we do raise it, we are given hundreds of reasons as to why that can’t happen. (S415) Despite communication barriers, some Pacific workers are confident to communicate with their employers. However, when they do so, they can experience being told that they are rude or aggressive. One Pacific worker from the beauty industry told us: To be honest, for myself, I feel like we have to act and talk a certain way to get by career wise. And when I do speak up, I’m seen as being rude! (S446) A Pacific public servant had a similar experience: Yet if I talk a lot or ask questions, corporate organisations (mostly white people) label us as “aggressive” and say “we always challenge” the system. If a white person asks a question is OK? I have seen the laziest white people promoted ahead of me. I can’t win. (S206) Pacific workers supporting each other to communicate Pacific workers were clear about what they felt they needed in order to address communication barriers: educating, talking and building one another up. A hospitality worker shared their vision: Pasifika educating ourselves about equity, that we have a right to be paid for the same work as non-Pasifika. Talking about it and mentoring other Pasifika. (S245) In another instance, to illustrate the need to communicate with one another as a means of raising awareness, a worker from the education sector shared her story of realising she was paid less than her colleagues: We need to talk more. Some people, like myself, didn’t realise that it was happening, and being part of a church outfit I naively thought they won’t stiff me – but it happened, systemically and subtly. I read through the letters of my previous bosses and thought that was so wrong, they denied me a raise for a few years and it was for the wrong position post. My other Pasifika colleague is getting way less, employed as part-time, but she feels the duties and work she does is full-time and does go over the hours. Awareness is needed. (S721) Voices of Pacific peoples 57