Carol Beaumont Speech to Public Meeting To End Low Wages

Speech - NZCTU Secretary Carol Beaumont
SuperSizeMyPay.Com/Unite Union Public Meeting To End Low Wages
Auckland Town Hall, 2pm Sunday February 12 2005.

Kia ora koutou katoa. Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you today and well done for putting on such a good meeting!

The Council of Trade Unions is the national union body and we speak on behalf of 34 affiliated unions and well over 300,000 union members who belong to those unions. In doing so we are the largest democratic organisation in NZ. I bring today the greetings of unions from throughout New Zealand, who stand by you in your campaign for wage justice. Today's meeting is about fairness for workers, particularly young workers, and demanding an end to low pay in New Zealand.

Young workers like yourselves are correctly not happy with being paid inferior rates to their older workmates, and see no reason why at 16 or 17 you should not be paid the same as a 19 year old doing the same job. And we agree with you wholeheartedly. The CTU believes all workers deserve a fair deal, and we oppose youth rates. We have been very vocal in raising the fact that NZ is a low wage economy and that this is unacceptable so we support the SuperSizeMyPay campaign for an end to youth rates, a $12 minimum wage and secure hours for workers.

Our longer term view is that the minimum wage should be indexed at two thirds of the average adult wage, as the 1988 Royal Commission on Social Policy recommended. This would currently be more than $14 an hour, and so we see a move to $12 an hour now as a step in that direction. I am pleased to be able to be here today with other trade unionists and members of the community to further that campaign.

The CTU asks - why should a secondary school student earning some extra money to support themselves or their family be paid a meager $7.60 for their work in a fast food restaurant? Why should workers looking after our older population in rest homes be on 10 and 11 dollars an hour for such essential work? There are countless examples of industries in New Zealand like fast food, retail and aged care that pay their workers at, or just above, the minimum wage, and this is not acceptable.

The debate around wages has had high profile over the last 12 months with campaigns like the EPMU 5 in 05 campaign which was picked up by the wider union movement and the SuperSizeMyPay campaign has had a key role more recently in profiling minimum wages and youth rates. Business groups have argued that a $12 minimum wage is out of the question and that increases will lead to decreased employment opportunities for workers, particularly younger workers. Well, the last six years stand as evidence to the contrary - a 36% increase in the minimum wage over the last six years has coincided with the lowest unemployment in decades.

The fact is you have been waiting far too long for a decent wage for the work you do. The gap between rich and poor grew hugely in the late 80s and 90s and companies in New Zealand have been enjoying record profits, and its well overdue for you to have your share.

There is a broad consensus that we have a low wage crisis in New Zealand. Our average wage is 30% lower than in Australia, and according to the Reserve Bank corporate profits increased by 11% a year from 2000 to 2004. During this same period wages rose just under 2.1% a year. 2005 saw the highest wage increases in many years as a result of the union wage campaign but there is still a long way to go.

Wages need to rise, yet often workers like you come up against an ideological resistance from employers to fair wage increases. They can afford to pay the 5% but they dont want the success of collective bargaining to be demonstrated in action. In these situations industrial action is often the only method remaining to make your point.

As we saw on Friday some fast food companies are slow in accepting the fact that workers are tired of low wages and poor conditions, and are taking a stand together in unions. McDonalds in Queen St may well think they can bully its workers into steering clear of the union, and therefore keeping wages low. In doing so think they can ignore the combined power of you and your workmates organising collectively in your union for the betterment of your pay and conditions. Well, as you are all proving today they will ignore it at their peril. Workers in New Zealand have every right to join a union and participate in its democratic processes. We all need to ensure that workers understand that by standing together in unions we can organize collectively to use political and industrial means to improve our rights at work.

Unite must be congratulated for organizing fast food workers by showing how together you can improve your time at work. The campaign for the minimum wage ultimately needs to happen in worksites and neighborhoods, through workers coming together in unions, and in public forums like today.

In the end though it is government that must decide on the legal minimum wage rate and so we were pleased when Sue Bradford's Bill ending youth rates for 16 and 17 year olds was drawn from the ballot in Parliament just before Christmas. While unions have been fighting for some time to remove youth rates through collective bargaining, for example the NDU in the retail industry has made some progress, the community can now have that debate about whether or not we still want to tolerate paying young people inferior rates to their older workmates, when they are doing the same work.

MPs will have the opportunity to end unfair discrimination against young people when parliament resumes next week, and we have been lobbying hard in support of the Bill. It is our expectation that the bill will be sent to a select committee so we can all have our say. We will all then need to make submissions, lobby political parties and publicly demonstrate our support. We must also be ready to debate the issues like whether removing youth rates will increase youth unemployment.

So the campaign continues. Importantly though, the public is with us on this one. You are demonstrating that today. There is a high level of awareness in New Zealand about the poor wages we have in our country - even in the business community. A recent example was in yesterdays Business Herald where economist and business director Kerry McDonald stated "At the bottom end of the social scale you have a substantial part of the New Zealand community who are on unacceptably low income ...The contrast between the top and bottom quartile is sharp. To me that is a recipe for social unrest."

There has been considerable interest in low wages from a number of the major media outlets - who have profiled some of you in their coverage of the minimum wages issue. And just last week the Dominion Post newspaper in Wellington agreed with CTU President Ross Wilson and wrote in their editorial that the minimum wage must be increased and youth rates scrapped.

The CTU supports fair pay for a fair days work and we know that wages must be increased significantly. Let me acknowledge the efforts made by unions to date and urge you all to continue campaigning as this is the time to make substantial progress. We all need to continue to get more of family and friends involved in the campaign to increase our strength. Finally to all of you I acknowledge your commitment. Kia Kaha.