Council of Trade Unions media release
1 February 2011

Wage increases do not match price rises

The CTU says that the increase of 1.7 per cent in wages for last year falls far short of price increases of 4 percent.

Peter Conway, CTU Secretary, said: “The main reasons for wage increases cited in the Statistics NZ release were due to the cost of living and the incidence of collective bargaining by unions. Workers are now facing higher GST, food prices and petrol costs and this will add to pressure for higher wages. Low and middle income workers also missed out on tax cuts of any significance and this unfairness will also affect attitudes to wage bargaining this year.”

Peter Conway said that even the median increase for those workers with an actual pay rise was only 2.9 percent and the overall increase of 1.7 percent is well down from the 4 percent level in the September 2008 year.

“We need to actually lift wages in New Zealand rather than just talk about it – that means a reasonable lift in the minimum wage, expansion of collective bargaining, improvements in productivity and a real commitment to lift living standards through decent jobs and wages.”

The additional hours worked as noted in the Quarterly Employment Survey show a slight improvement but overall employment growth is also weak.

This shows that workers and their families are still bearing the brunt of the recession.

ENDS

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