Media release: FIRST Union
Friday October 4, 2013

Working families still struggling

Working families are still struggling to make ends meet, a union for low paid workers said today, following the release of the NZ Income Survey this morning.

The survey reported an increase in income levels driven in part by a larger proportion of older workers within the workforce.  Median weekly income from wages and salaries for those receiving income from this source increased by $38 between the June 2012 and June 2013 quarters.

The survey reported the proportion of people earning wages and salaries decreased 0.7% for 15-24 year olds and increased 1.3 % for people aged 50 and over.

FIRST Union General Secretary Robert Reid said working families were still struggling with high living costs and low incomes.

“Many of our union’s members rely on Working for Families because their employers pay wages nowhere near a liveable rate, or because their hours of work were not enough to get by on.”

“There would be few retail workers in our union who are not in need of more hours,” he said.

“Many of them have a base level of hours, and then their hours are ‘flexed up’, or not, from week to week.  This makes their income highly precarious.”

Robert Reid said there was a growing concern among New Zealanders about income inequality.

“The Bryan Bruce child poverty documentary, Max Rashbrooke’s recently published book on inequality and the work of many community organisations on welfare reforms, housing and other issues has intensified the debate in recent years.”

“And we now have a Living Wage movement that is drawing attention to low wages in New Zealand, and what some of the solutions are.”

Robert Reid said that workers coming together to collectively bargain remained one of the most effective ways of lifting incomes. 

“Although around a percentage down from last year FIRST Union has been negotiating wage increases for a majority of its members from 2-3% in 2013.  Some members, especially in firms where their workers have recently joined the union and were they have been paying workers below average rates in the industry have achieved even greater increases of up to 10% through collective bargaining.”

“However, instead of supporting workers to bargain collectively, the government is pushing through law changes to put even more barriers in the way, which would see real wages drop,” Robert Reid said.

ENDS

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