Fair pay would be life-changing
Fair pay agreements offer a potential opportunity to turn around our lowwage economy and regulate our lowest-paying industries. An agreement would cover an entire industry, and lift the minimum terms and conditions for workers within it.
The working group tasked with debating what this may look like has just released its report of recommendations to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Iain LeesGalloway.
A quarter of people working in New Zealand are earning under $20 an hour, according to the report. And 61.3 per cent of them are 25 or older. That’s more than 300,000 workers.
These must be people with years of work experience behind them, people with families, skilled people, educated people, people who have mortgages or (especially in our main centres) high rents.
Here is what a union member who works in the retail sector recently told me: ‘‘New Zealand used to be a place where if you worked hard you would get ahead – not anymore. Everything has gone up except wages.’’
Comparatively, workers in retail in Australia begin on $20 an hour, and that’s due in large part to the fact they have an industry agreement. Industry agreements make up a large part of the industrial relations framework in Australia and other ‘advanced’ economies General secretary, First Union
around the world.
The recommendations detail what would make up a very flexible, and sophisticated document. In special circumstances, there may be cases for companies to be exempt, and while fair pay agreements will sit atop existing employment law, they would not form the ceiling for terms and conditions, rather they would contain negotiated minimums. Unionised workers would be able to negotiate higher rates above an fair pay agreement through a collective employment agreement.
These agreements would address pay parity issues so people who work the same job are paid the same rate for it. There’s pay disparity between workers who do the same kinds of work in many industries. An example is retail; supermarket checkout operators all perform the same work but wages vary widely (even within the same local communities) depending on whether you happen to work at a unionised supermarket or not.
In the bus industry, bus operators compete for tenders and win based on who pays the lowest wages. This too could be amended through a fair pay agreement for the bus industry and bus operators would then be forced to compete on which operator provides the bestquality service rather than which company pays their workers the lowest. Essentially, fair pay agreements could help level the playing field and this would benefit workers as well as employers who offer their workers a fair deal. This is why they need to be compulsory; the only loser is the cowboy employer who undercuts the market.
Working people will be better off when they come in effect.
What we will see is higher wages and better working conditions that will allow people to live better lives and find a healthier work/life balance.
Supermarket checkout operators all perform the same work but wages vary widely.