Matt McCarten: First step in getting rid of youth rates

Young workers are another step closer to getting the same minimum pay as adults after Sue Bradford's bill to scrap youth rates passed its first hurdle in Parliament this week.

For those of you who don't know, 16- and 17-year-olds get paid a minimum of $7.60 an hour. Everyone over 18 gets at least $9.50 for the same work. Under 16-year-olds have no minimum. If Bradford's bill is passed the adult minimum wage would apply to all workers aged over 15.

Predictably the employers' unions are putting out all the usual nonsense that teenagers won't be employed. Of course they haven't released any research to back up their claim. That's because there isn't any. In fact a recent Treasury report shows that youth employment has been increasing despite a closing gap between youth and adult rates.

The report further suggested there was no correlation between employment of youth and the wage differential.

Employers' unions have a history of claiming that the sky will fall in if workers make any gains in their wages or conditions. This is the same crowd who predicted dire consequences when the labour laws were changed, when ACC was re-nationalised, when paid parental leave was introduced and whenever there are increases in the minimum wage.

The fact is we now have the lowest unemployment in the OECD and the economy has grown by 20 per cent in five years.

No one would argue that there is a legitimate case to pay workers less while in training. But youth rates are unfair because they discriminate solely because of a worker's age.

CTU President Ross Wilson says: "Time after time the business lobby has proved themselves wrong on labour reforms, and we would be happy to add youth rates to that list."

In fact, I'm sure there could be a strong legal case to be made that discriminating against a worker because of their age is in breach of their human rights. It seems logical to me that if an employer can't discriminate against workers on the basis of their gender or race then it can't be legal to discriminate on the basis of age.

After all, the mandatory retirement age was removed because it was discriminatory to older workers.

NZ Statistics revealed in its latest household income survey that 59,000 of the 109,000 16- and 17-year-olds are in the workforce. Well over three-quarters of these young workers are employed in the fast-food restaurant industry, picture theatres or retail stores and supermarkets. All these young workers are expected, as are the adult workers, to perform to the required standard of work after their induction.

In fact many of these young workers are supervisors and train new employees.

In moments of refreshing honesty, I have had two major employers concede that the only reason they pay youth rates is that the law permits them and it keeps costs down.

Major employers such as Wendy's, who don't pay youth rates on principle, still seem to have the same percentage of mixed age in their workforce as their competitors. McDonald's only brought in youth rates two years ago because, they say, their competitors were paying youth rates and the competitive advantage was too great.

The employers are right, of course, that many of these jobs are entry level. But the main point is that all employees, whatever their age, are expected to reach the same standard of output.

As Bradford said this week: "Employers aren't hiring young workers out of the kindness of their heart, they are taking them on because they are as valuable to them as any other employee."

Labour, the Maori Party, NZ First and even United Future supported the Greens in getting Bradford's bill to the select committee stage.

Bradford told the CTU executive on Thursday that she was under no illusion that it was the recent actions by young workers in the fast food industry that helped tip the other parties into supporting her bill - at least to the first stage.

If you asked me a month ago whether this bill could get through, I would have said it had a slim chance. Now I'd give it a better than even chance.

So if young people start mobilising to support their case for equal pay we may finally see the last scourge of wage discrimination against a single group of workers come to an end.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY