Matt McCarten: Public invited to unique workers' rally

At certain times in our lives, we come to a point where we choose to support a just cause or ignore it while rationalising that it has nothing to do with us. At 2pm today is one of those times.

Many of you will know that for the last few weeks, hundreds of minimum wage workers in the fast food restaurant industry have been putting themselves on the line. They have been engaging in ongoing public action in their stores to bring attention to their abysmal wages and conditions. Their claims are simple: $12 an hour (most adults are on $9.50), end youth rates (equal pay for equal work) and more security of hours (there is none).

They've called their campaign SuperSizeMyPay.com. Get it? As the young technologically smart generation, they named their campaign after their website.

Almost 2000 of them are involved and they have financed the campaign themselves. This is an incredible feat. They say support from their customers is high.

The campaign so far has been a series of short actions to publicise their campaign to their customers. Their campaign has now come to a critical point. The three big fast food employers have agreed to sit down and negotiate their employees' claims.

Just over two weeks ago, their campaign committee asked me to book the Auckland Town Hall and ask people to come and show their support. I pointed out no union held public meetings or took the risk of booking a hall for 2000. "Maybe that's why our wages are so low," they chided. Point well made.

I said we'd need community leaders and MPs to come and speak. What we want is bands and humorous speakers, they said. So we reached a compromise and decided to have both.

They claimed Imon Star from Rhombus was the coolest musician around and that he should play and host the event. Imon agreed.

Then some of the younger women said that NZ Idol Rosita Vai once worked in their restaurant and we should ask her to come. Rosita agreed immediately to sing a couple of songs for these young workers. You can't get bigger than that. In the end, we had so many musicians agreeing to help that we decided to hold a free outdoor concert in March as well.

Green MP Sue Bradford was having her bill to end youth rates introduced into Parliament this month and was obviously pleased to come. The committee wanted the Labour Party and the Maori Party as well. Disappointingly, we couldn't get a Labour MP to front but Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples is coming.

They all agreed that as we had several serious speakers, we should also have some comedians. Michele A'Court came to our rescue and will lead a couple of her colleagues in making sure we keep a sense of humour.

It seems we have another first today - politicians and comedians speaking at the same meeting. Hold the thought.

Other leading community leaders will address the rally. Council of Trade Unions secretary Carol Beaumont is speaking on behalf of the rest of Auckland's trade unions.

We'll hear from Laila Harre from the National Distribution Union on her supermarket campaign. The nurses union campaign for aged care workers will also be discussed.

But I couldn't convince any of these young workers to speak. After all, people want to hear from them. They came up with an ingenious way to avoid having to speakin public.

A short film which interviews rank and file workers will screen at the meeting.

Not a day goes by without our office being contacted by several stores wanting to take action in support of this campaign. But despite their courage, these minimum wage workers can't do it without community support. These workers have little if any industrial muscle in the traditional sense. They don't want to inconvenience their regular customers, nor damage their close working relationships with their store managers.

Without your support, these workers will find it that much harder to win. They can't do it on their own.

If you do one thing this yearto support low-paid workers,make it attending this rally today at 2pm.

After all, this generation of low paid workers have to fight to get even minimal conditions we once took for granted. They have to put their jobs on the line. All they're asking is two hours of your time this afternoon.