Retail workers ‘worth’ living wage
Experienced, part-time retail worker Ellisha Marris-Rood says it’s a struggle to get by on the pay rate and hours of work she is offered.
A third-year bachelor of social work student at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, Marris-Rood says she can ‘‘barely do anything’’ with the money she is paid for her work in customer services. She has to buy budget cans of spaghetti or baked beans and $1 loaves of bread ‘‘in order to get through’’.
‘‘There wasn’t enough hours [of work offered] to live on,’’ she said on Saturday from a First Union stall on Trafalgar St, Nelson.
Marris-Rood has been employed in retail for seven years, during which time she has worked for several employers. Her rate of pay has ranged from the minimum wage to about $18 an hour. She is getting 10 to 20 hours of work a week but said she needed more than 20 hours to get by.
Other workers were in the same situation, she said. ‘‘Around me, I’ve seen people not getting enough hours and not getting paid enough to survive on.’’
Marris-Rood was one of several people at the stall handing out leaflets and tote bags outlining First Union’s Worth It campaign. Launched in April, the campaign is rolling out across New Zealand, calling on employers to give retail workers enough hours to live on and to pay them a living wage, which is currently $20.55 an hour.
Union organiser Rachel Boyack said a lot of retail workers were getting only five to 10 hours of work a week. This ‘‘casualisation’’ of the workforce made people hungry for hours, which meant they were less likely to complain or ask for a pay rise.
The stall in Nelson came on the same day news broke of a new agreement between Foodstuffs North Island (distribution centres) and First Union that includes wage increases ranging from 9.4 to 25.2 per cent. Boyack said the deal would eventually deliver a living wage to those workers in the distribution centres.
The Nelson stall was also held the same week some Farmers employees across the country went on strike. Farmers was one of the lowest payers of those employers with which the union had negotiated a collective agreement in retail, Boyack said.
First Union was also working with ‘‘a lot of upset members’’ from The Warehouse who were concerned their jobs could be axed under a company proposal to cut 180 jobs across 93 stores, she said.