Minimum Wage

The Council of Trade Unions has welcomed the Government’s decision not to support Roger Douglas’s youth minimum wage Bill. “We are pleased that the Government agrees that paying young people less for doing the same work as an older person is fundamentally unfair and will do nothing to alleviate unemployment,” said CTU President Helen Kelly.

The Government should not support Roger Douglas’s youth minimum wage rates Bill because it is discriminatory and will do nothing to ease unemployment, said CTU President Helen Kelly after the Minimum Wage (Mitigation of Youth Unemployment) Amendment Bill was drawn from the Members’ bills ballot yesterday.

The New Zealand youth union movement, Stand Up, is calling on the Government to steer clear of Roger Douglas’s Private Members’ Bill which directly attacks young workers by reinstating youth rates.

Though employment and hours worked are still falling, pay rates continue to show signs of upward movement, said CTU Economist and Policy Director Bill Rosenberg as Labour Cost Index and Quarterly Employment Survey figures were released today.

The New Zealand youth union movement, Stand Up, is disgusted with the Government’s failure to properly assist the lowest paid in the New Zealand economy by only raising the minimum wage by 25 cents, and is urging it to remove the trainee/new entrant rates.
 

The increase in the minimum wage of just 25c to $12.75 per hour is mean, said Council of Trade Unions President Helen Kelly today. “If this is the rate at which we intend to catch up with Australian wages then we will never get there,” she said.

The Government cannot ignore the thousands of protestors who are marching across New Zealand to demand an end to the wage freeze on low paid public and community sector workers, said CTU President Helen Kelly today.

The CTU has reiterated its support for the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill which would ensure contractors doing work such as leaflet delivering were paid at a rate at least equivalent to the minimum wage.

The CTU welcomed the Government’s announcement today of some of the details of the “9-day fortnight” including that it would fund workers’ pay for the 10th day to the tune of five hours per fortnight at the minimum wage.

The increase to the minimum wage announced today by the Government will be welcomed by workers on the minimum wage but will not relieve the difficulties these workers face making ends meets, Helen Kelly said today.