Another worker had a similar experience and was not aware she could ask for a higher duties allowance: I have been asked to cover or be seconded into senior roles at times with no pay renumeration – that’s because I did not know this existed. (S152) A male construction worker had a similar experience of being ‘promoted’ without a pay increase: I was put into a higher position for almost a year and was never given recognition or a fair pay rise for the work that was so far out of my scope of knowledge and contract. I didn’t ask for the position. I was told to do that work even though I was still being paid the same as my last position, which was not a managerial position. Hardly a promotion. (S193) No remuneration for providing additional work Pacific participants shared stories of ‘gap filling’ where they were being asked to do extra labour because other workers were missing, but their pay did not reflect this extra labour. Some spoke of the pressure of their employers wanting them to pick up extra hours, with some being forced to do extra work whether they wanted to or not. At our worker talanoa for the manufacturing industry, one person said: Always get pressure to working weekends, overtime, can’t say no. Boss always says you have to work late, but you’ll still get paid the extra hour or two hours or whatever. (T013) A health worker spoke about being forced by her employer to do extra work, which eventually led her to resign from her position: I was forced to take on a separate contract that was paying me for seven hours per week extra. However, the duties of that role separately were at least 20 hours. I declined to sign the contract, and in the end, employer pulled out a clause in my contract making me have to do those duties anyway. I was on 30 hours per week but they only increase hours to 12 extra. I advised that I felt it was unfair and had concerns for my health and lack of support from management. This experience was what make me resign and look for other work. (S175) 68 There were several examples of people not being adequately remunerated when they did pick up extra work whether under pressure or not. They identified risks if they spoke up about this. One manufacturing worker told us: This part is the most disappointing part of my work. They don’t like people asking for the right pay to be paid to us according to the work we do and how hard we work to make sure their company will still be around for many years. If we ask about why we get [underpaid], we would label as troublemakers and they will find something even if it really small to kick us out of the job. We don’t get paid for working overtime and had asked too many times to explain to us why they do this only to be shut down and threatened to lose our jobs. We have reached out to the union to help us as we are working in cold conditions and normally over 60 hours a week without bonus and being paid with the overtime rate. (S010) Others explained how the additional work they put into their existing duties was not recognised or reflected in their pay. One person told us that it’s “hard to be paid your worth – extra work is undervalued and taken for granted” (S045). Another gave us an example of the extra effort she put in to do her job: A paragraph in English is two paragraphs in the island context, and when you have to explain it, it takes up to half an hour to just explain that disorder to the person, and our Pacific nurses have to do that. They are called upon all the time. We’re not remunerated any differently; consequently, our workload is more than our counterparts who sit alongside us, and we have the same patient allocation. (T003) Some people noticed inequities between different worksites that they felt were not adequately recognised: “We work harder here at this factory at [placename] than the one at [other placename], but they get paid more. The work is hard, tiring, heavy, we are tired every day. (T013) Pressure and lack of adequate remuneration also manifested in other ways. In some organisations, Pacific workers were in national leadership roles –