Minimum wage: The workers who keep the country going — Shane Te Pou

Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden raised the adult minimum wage rate by 1.5% to $23.50. Photo / Mark Mitchell

THREE KEY FACTS

• The minimum wage will rise from $23.15 an hour to $23.50 an hour in April.
• The change is expected to impact an estimated 142,000 workers.
• The Stats NZ consumers price index was up 2.2% in the September quarter compared to a year earlier.

As we enjoy our summer break, catching up with friends and whānau, let’s also spare a thought for the many workers who still have to work through this period to make our relaxation possible. I’m thinking particularly of the many minimum (or near minimum) wage workers who staff our shops, restaurants, petrol stations and public attractions.

They are literally the people who keep the country going while the rest of us have a break. They deserve fair pay for their work — and they’re not getting it.

Just before Christmas, while the political media was focused on other issues, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden announced that the minimum wage will be increased by just 1.5% on April 1 — less than the inflation rate of 2.2%.

This is the second year running that the Luxon Government has given our poorest workers a pay rise of less than inflation — in real terms, a pay cut. Both times, van Velden has pushed for even bigger cuts.

I don’t understand how this Government’s ministers could feel okay with ending the year by cutting the wages of our lowest-paid workers.

Officials advised that to keep up with inflation, the minimum wage should have been increased 6% over the past two years, which would make it $24.10 for 2025. Instead, it will be just $23.50. That 60c an hour is $1200 a year — a big deal to most people, and especially for a low-income worker. Certainly, what they’re losing in effective pay cuts from this Government more than they got in tax cuts.

Real Kiwi families are going to feel the pinch from Luxon and van Velden’s minimum wage cuts.

According to government statistics, 129,000 Kiwis are paid the minimum wage, with tens of thousands more earning just above it. The stereotype that they’re all young or students is wrong: 58,000 are aged over 24 and 56,000 have kids to look after. Only 25,000 are students.

The idea that a higher minimum wage would cost jobs is and always has been rubbish. The Labour Government increased the minimum wage by 44% over six years and unemployment fell to record lows. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) said none of the minimum wage options reviewed for 2025 would have any measurable effect on the number of jobs.

Incredibly, one of the justifications van Velden gave in her Cabinet paper for cutting the minimum wage in real terms was that the previous Labour Government increased it faster than inflation. In other words, “they’ve had it good for too long”.

We will only be truly wealthy as a country when we ensure all workers are paid a living wage that is enough to afford a decent standard of living.

That brings me to Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau Trust, the largest kaupapa Māori disability support provider, and its treatment of staff. The mostly near-minimum wage workers held a strike before Christmas to protest the management’s terrible pay offer, and its decision to impose 90-day trials and require approval for secondary employment. The management responded by trying to lock them out from their jobs.

Disability providers are doing it tough with this Government looking to cut disability spending and failing to fund pay equity for the workers, but that is no excuse for the leadership to treat the kaimahi this way. Workers and management need to stand together to demand fair funding from the Government.

Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau Trust is meant to be about Māori supporting our people in our community in accordance with our culture and values. The management’s treatment of its staff does not live up to that tikanga.

Back in 2014, the then minister, the late Dame Tariana Turia, stepped in over mismanagement of the trust. That led to the chair and chief executive being replaced. This led to a better situation for the next decade, where the trust delivered care to the people in need, and did right by its staff. Unfortunately, it seems those days are gone.

Dame Tariana was someone who also remembered that her job was to fight for the ordinary person, to give a voice to those who had none.

Today’s ministers would do well to honour the legacy of Dame Tariana by stepping up to protect the rights of workers at the trust, and in the wider community.

* Shane Te Pou is a former staff member of the Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau Trust.

Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.