Embargoed until: 12am, 1 April 2015

Minimum Wage Increase “April Fools’ Joke”

The Service and Food Workers Union said that today’s 50 cents an hour minimum wage increase would not go very far in lifting low-income families out of struggle street.

SFWU National Secretary John Ryall said that while tens of thousands of minimum wage workers would welcome any increase in their pay, 50 cents an hour was “an April fools’ joke” for families already struggling with increasing accommodation, energy and transport costs.

“The sad fact is that with the National Government’s continual erosion of collective bargaining rights more and more workers are reliant on Government minimum wage movements for an increase in their wages,” John said.

“New Zealand’s wage setting system is well and truly broken when workers look to a decision made by well-paid politicians to set their household income for the next 12 months.”

“To rub salt into the wound the Government, on the eve of the minimum wage increase, has appealed against an Employment Court decision to grant the minimum wage to 35,000 carer relief workers, leaving them to be paid a rate of pay just over $3.00 an hour,” he said.

ENDS

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