Unite Union National Secretary John Crocker has welcomed the decision to increase the minimum wage by $1.20 an hour but says there is now no longer any excuse for not making the minimum wage the same as the Living wage.
“Last year’s Nobel Prize in economics was won by economists who proved that a high minimum wage does not cause job losses or inflation.”
“This has also been true in New Zealand. Periods when the minimum wage has increased the fastest have been periods when unemployment was falling. Commentators need to stop suggesting it will cost jobs – it has been empirically disproved and they sound foolish”.
“The Covid crisis has also proven who the essential workers are – and they are often still being paid below the Living Wage. The MIQ workers who have kept us all safe for two years are facing a pay cut when the government contracts run out, this isn’t fair.”
“This year Unite will be campaigning for the MIQ workers and then for a Fair Pay Agreement for all hospitality workers that starts everyone on the Living wage.”
“That process has already begun with SkyCity being targeted for a Living wage start rate for all their staff as well as improving margins for skill and service.
“It would make life easier if the government lead this process rather than forcing workers into unnecessary strikes where they lose money to achieve what should be their right. $1.20 per hour is great, its 6%. But so is inflation, this raise was absolutely necessary.” said John Crocker.
What is the point of minimum wages and employment rights when it doesn’t apply to contract and gig work most of the time and people can be made redundant through a ‘process’ and then the job put back as contract, self employed and gig work which is increasing in NZ? Many low wage gig, ‘self employment’ and contract schemes work out below minimum wages. Just look at Chorus,…..
Then there is the cash workers working below minimum wages, and don’t even pay any tax….
The the employers employing the cash workers and then making them pay back for their fake jobs.
Seriously some NZ unions are asleep at the wheel and in many ways helping poorer working conditions in NZ to develop while promoting +5 star+ so Called worker rights that increasingly like sick pay, that increasingly less people are entitled to, as they are ‘not employed’.
In some cases contract and gig work is acceptable but not for formally employed jobs like being a lines person, waiter and taxi driver, now replaced by Chorus ‘self employed’ workers, self employed uber drivers and waiters and food staff on $8 per hour or less.
The reason they can’t get hospitality staff and fruit pickers and labourers is that they often work out below minimum wages!
Instead of calling this out, unions have been helping those poor employers prosper by lobbying to get cheaper workers into NZ to work for them and give them welfare here, as their employer makes it so they can’t survive on the wages.
The idea should be to stop, prosecute and remove all profits from those people doing this (human trafficking) and stop the visas themselves for these roles that are unskilled and make all jobs from overseas subject to an employer bond that they pay out, if the job disappear or is not as promises, as it seems to very rapidly once the workers get here!
Well, comrade luxon did say $28/hr when he first took over from Collins.
Let’s see a bidding war. Who can outbid each other!
Here’s what Finland does, they don’t seem to have fallen like NZ unions for scams and woke globalism with fraudsters and people trafficking.
Any migrants coming to reside there, have to pay their worldwide taxes there! Cant really see this appealing to NZ migrants like Peter Thiel.
Finland deported unusually many foreigners last year, writes YLE
https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/17335-finland-deported-unusually-many-foreigners-last-year-writes-yle.html
(note anybody on a work permit that fails to pay the full amount of taxes and insurances, are also deported).
You can not be a Finnish resident unless you pay your worldwide taxes there, in NZ you seem to be able to be a NZ resident, get all the social benefits of that and things like wage subsidies and being able to buy NZ property, but not have to pay your worldwide taxes here.
https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2021/07/finland-taxation-of-international-executives.html
Maybe if NZ implemented Finish rules and standards, then we would get a system that works and people have real skills in NZ that stay here, aka in nursing/doctors/ construction that have real qualifications.
Instead we are lowering standards forcing qualified people to leave NZ to get higher levels of pay while the fakers and novice professionals stay in NZ as conditions are so good here and few seem to be paying full taxes and following NZ rules, while building and buying palatial housing.
Liquor store owners designed mansion while company probed
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/119602924/liquor-store-owners-planned-mansion-while-company-probed
Auckland businessman sentenced after police target professional money launderers in covert Operation Menelaus
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-businessman-sentenced-after-police-target-professional-money-launderers-in-covert-operation-menelaus/KZOJ75U6V2I6PBYIUVYWQEY5E4/
$18.7m cigarette smuggling case: Businesswoman jailed, millions in assets forfeited
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/187m-cigarette-smuggling-case-businesswoman-jailed-millions-in-assets-forfeited/4BWFS2RDWI2SBHTERAEUCX3M2E/
Business Insider: The Thiel Deal
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/business-insider-the-thiel-deal/DBP6RYXM6RM7QARFEXQXXXNBRE/
James Cameron explains dairy cows on Wairarapa farm
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018791897/james-cameron-explains-dairy-cows-on-wairarapa-farm
Some of New Zealand’s most exclusive employers claimed Covid-19 wage subsidy
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/125691018/some-of-new-zealands-most-exclusive-employers-claimed-covid19-wage-subsidy