Unions tackle Factory Floor and Wage Floor

 
May 2005
 
 
What does continuing advocacy on the minimum wage mean for Equal Employment Opportunities?  Carol Beaumont, Secretary of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions answers NEON’s questions.
 
NEON: What marginalised groups and what kinds of workers/industries stand to gain the most from increases in the minimum wage? 
 
CB: At least 45,000 workers are directly affected by the minimum wage. That group are likely to be women, and [there is] a large ethnic dimension - Māori women and Pacific women are the women who have on average the lowest rates of pay. 
 
The other group would be young people. Youth rates are not illegal so you can have some pretty low rates of pay. The other dimension would be particular industries: service industries, people undertaking caring responsibilities, cleaners, retail, hospitality. Within these industries again, you get large numbers of women workers, and a lot of younger workers. 
 
The gap between high and low income earners actually widened in the 1990s so [the minimum wage campaign] is about changing that respective share to get more in the pockets of working people.  The other quite conscious part of our strategy is about lifting wage expectations. The economy is doing very well overall. Unemployment is low, profitability is high, productivity has been improving. The time is right for workers to get a better share.  
 
NEON: Aside from the big pay equity push recently, what is the union record like on under-represented groups?
 
CB: In New Zealand the majority of union members are women. That’s obviously not been the case historically. Just over 50% are women, although women make up only 46% of the paid workforce. This is probably because we are far more unionised in the public sector than the private sector. 
Our ethnic statistics within the unions overall aren’t too good. Anecdotally, we’d think that young workers are under-represented in unions, and we have no real measure of lesbian, gay and transgender workers in unions. But certainly the union movement has recognised that all of those groups faced particular needs and issues in the workplace, and within unions as well. One of our strategies is to have clear policy to counter discrimination, and target all those groups with educational programmes. We have been increasingly aware of the need to do that really targeted work.
 
NEON: How is the CTU engaging the diverse workforce?
  • Women’s Council, Runanga, Komiti Pasefika, Youth Union Movement and an Out@Work Council for queer union members
  • actively involved in issues important to these union members e.g. Hui Taumata; the repeal of the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act; pay equity; and opposing youth wage rates
  • translating union literature into different Pacific languages, and running an employment rights talk-back show on Pacific radio
  • youth-targeted education
  • established 13 CTU industry groups, enabling better understanding of issues faced by specific groups of workers in any industry e.g. the high proportion of Māori within the meat and seafood industries.