KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's lowest-paid state sector workers, school cleaners, may be on the brink of earning significantly more than the minimum wage for the first time.
The cleaners, with school caretakers and canteen workers, will today present petitions signed by 15,000 people supporting their claim for a pay rise to Education Minister Chris Carter in Auckland, Justice Minister Annette King in Wellington and Social Development Minister Ruth Dyson in Christchurch.
Most cleaners, like Rosebank School's Alice Phillips, who has been in her job for 24 years, get only the legal minimum wage of $12 an hour.
Mrs Phillips, who started cleaning the school when her son started there at the age of 5, plans to move to Australia with her now-adult son and daughter and a 7-year-old grandson unless she gets a pay rise.
"When I was in Australia at Christmas time the starting rate for cleaners was $18 and if you work weekends you are on $25 an hour.
"The cost of living has gone up. With what I'm on now I'm surviving on $50 a week [for food]. What you get for that is very basic."
The Service and Food Workers Union, which represents about 40 per cent of the 5000 cleaners employed directly by schools, wants the Government to lift the starting wage to that of cleaners, orderlies and kitchen hands in public hospitals - $14.62 an hour - from today.
The Government allocated $16 million in last year's Budget to lift the 3000 hospital workers' pay initially to $14.25 an hour. Their rate rises by a further 2.6 per cent today.
Union national secretary John Ryall said it would cost $23 million a year to give the same rate to school cleaners, including the 5000 employed by schools and a further 1500 or so employed by cleaning companies.
Mr Carter told the Herald yesterday: "Although I am not directly involved in bargaining, I can give an assurance that the Government is committed to addressing issues of low pay in the school sector.
"I am exploring options that will enable the ministry and the Service and Food Workers Union to reconvene bargaining talks."
The School Trustees Association's service delivery manager, Colin Davies, said Mr Carter assured school boards at their conferencetwo weeks ago that the Govern-ment would provide the additional funding to cover any pay increase.
Mr Ryall said the ministry had offered a pay increase of only 4 per cent on the previous starting rate of $11.67 an hour, which has already been superseded by an increase in the minimum wage to $12 from last April.
He said the union halted negotiations while it pursued a political campaign to achieve a similar deal to the health sector's. Apart from the petition, supporters have also sent Mr Carter 10,000 postcards.
"We think the Government is very sympathetic to directly addressing the problems of low-paid workers employed by the state, but as yet there has been no decision made about this," Mr Ryall said.
"We are expecting a response from the Ministry of Education in the next week or so about an offer from them, but I'm not sure whether it will be satisfactory."
Although school cleaners are now the lowest-paid workers employed directly by the state, many other workers who are funded indirectly by taxpayers still earn much less than the hospital cleaners.
For example, most caregivers in privately owned rest homes gained a starting rate of only $12.55 an hour last year after the Government earmarked money for them through the health budget. Rest home owners won a court battle against district health boards over how the money was passed on, but the union thinks most caregivers are now on the new rate.
