SERVICE AND FOOD WORKERS UNION MEDIA RELEASE

5 June 2013

Government’s Brutal Reminder of Aim to Lower Wages

The Service and Food Workers Union Ngā Ringa Tota has condemned the Government’s proposed changes to the Employment Relations Act, which was introduced to Parliament tonight.

“There is not one thing in the raft of proposed changes that will help New Zealand workers to increase their already very low wage rates,” said SFWU spokesperson, Jill Ovens.

“The changes are a brutal reminder that the Government wants to entrench a low-wage regime in this country and make life for low-income working families even more insecure.”

Jill Ovens said the proposed changes were designed to further weaken the position of workers to maintain their wage rates and working conditions.

“The proposed changes will give employers a major weapon to undermine workers seeking to bargain collectively and, through the changes to Part 6A, make the lives of cleaners and other vulnerable workers even more uncertain,” she said.

“If the Government’s proposed changes to vulnerable workers’ protections go through, there will be mass job losses when contracts change because the new employers won’t have to take on protected workers like cleaners or security guards, or if they are taken on by the new employer, the workers will lose out on pay and conditions.”

Under the proposed changes to Part 6A, small companies will be exempted from vulnerable workers’ protections when contracts change.

Jill Ovens said the proposed change to Part 6A would be a disaster for the cleaning industry and its workers and would unfairly advantage small cleaning businesses like franchisees over the big companies that employ by far the majority of cleaners.

“Cleaners’ pay is already bad enough,” she said. “Right now SFWU cleaner members are voting on a pay rise that will take them to a minimum of $14.10 an hour. But in small companies where there is no union, cleaners are on the minimum wage and cleaners who buy into franchises are lucky if get the minimum wage after paying fees to the franchising company.”

The Service and Food Workers Union represents 22,000 workers in some of New Zealand’s lowest paying jobs, including cleaning, caregiving, security and other service work. 

ENDS

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