You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Maritime Union
Maritime Union of New Zealand Media Release – for immediate release Tuesday 21 March 2006
The uprising amongst New Zealand youth against low pay and insecure jobs is being backed by the Maritime Union.
Maritime Union General Secretary Trevor Hanson says all workers should support young people who are taking part in campaign activities, including industrial action at fast food outlets and the recent street rallies and concerts.
"What we are seeing is the inevitable reaction from working class young people who have become a low-wage generation."
He says youth rates need to be abolished, and there also needed to be ongoing increases in the minimum wage.
Youth rates are the youth minimum wage paid to young people who are 16 and 17. Currently the youth minimum wage is $7.60 per hour, and will go up on 27 March 2006 to $8.20 per hour.
The adult minimum wage (which is for people aged over 18), is $9.50 per hour, going up to $10.25 on 27 March 2006.
Mr Hanson says young people are being advised to go into debt for tertiary education, pay for housing and accommodation costs that are going through the roof, save for their retirement, and are constantly pressured by advertising to buy consumer goods.
"Try doing that on the minimum wage, let alone youth rates."
Mr Hanson says the recent resistance in France to attacks on low-paid young workers was an indication that this was an international issue.
"We are witnessing the long overdue political and social awakening of a new generation."
He says the attacks on vulnerable workers will continue, with the recent introduction to Parliament of a bill for "trial employment periods" in New Zealand.
"The fact is that any law like this would be used by some employers to hold the whip hand over their employees, especially those who are young, vulnerable and unsure of their rights."
ENDS
For further information contact:
Maritime Union General Secretary Trevor Hanson on 04 801 7614 or 021 390585
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Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
It's hard enough living on a $13.50 per hour wage let alone anything lower & I still need to collect welfare to make ends meet. Fuck worker slavery!
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
Exactly. The gubberment is giving handouts on people on $50,000 a year.
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
Good to see MUNZ coming out in support of this. Has the CTU as a whole or any individual union said anything about the student strike?
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
i think the CTU may have put out a press release
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
Yes CTU did support Radical Youth
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0603/S00170.htm
Also Unite as, you would probably know, provided both moral and pratical support in the form of transport to the protest.
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
Great - they even name Radical Youth! Must be the first time in a while that the CTU's defended a bunch of anarchists and Marxists!
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
Yeah, minimum wage sucks arse. I was exploited enough by nasty employers by being paid youth & minimum wages when I was younger. Now I wouldn't get out of bed for a job that pays less than $30.00 a hour. I have a friend that's getting paid $25.00 a hour & they still need money from WINZ & getting tax credits to help rise a family. Thus, I think the minimum wage should be that. As if this country can't afford it with the salaries that Theresa Gattung & Helen Clark gets. That's proof enough that the money is there in the private & public sectors to do it. I am sick of big business bitching that too many people get help from WINZ yet there pay pitiful wages. Anyhow, my hat is off to anyone that can bring up a family on the minimum wage. You people really do deserve more. Hope it goes up soon & keep fighting the good fight!
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
All that low, minimum and youth pay does at the moment is promote a Machiavellian culture i.e. to get ahead you have to be elaborately cunning, decitful and perfidious. Do we really want to live in a culture like that???? I sure as hell don't!!!!
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
er,
actually the CTU used to be run by a bunch of people who rec-conned themselves to be Marxists.
It was under the leadership of The Socialist Party of Aotearoa and it's boss Ken Douglas that the original ECA became law.
Ken and his mates, for those of you who forgot, engineered an end to all the massive protest actions against the law after getting "significant concessions" from the national government.
And hey presto!, 15 years and several capitalist governmenst later, we still have $9.50 as the minimum wage.
Moral of the story: All that glitters is not gold.
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
And union bosses end up looking like capitalist bosses, as in Orwell's Animal Farm:
'They looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and couldn't tell any difference.'
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
Not always, but sometimes it seems more like the rule than the exception.
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
I'm interested in why you are attacking a Union that is supporting a campaign to improve the conditions of low wage young workers, and has consistently campaigned against casualization for many years, to the point of strikes (Auckland 2004) and pickets against casualizing employers (South Island 1999-2001).
I think George Orwell probably would think you were a bit off-target.
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
Victor, I think they are talking about Ken Douglas and co rather than the Maritime Union. Offence cannot be given, it can only be taken.
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
Agreed Strypey. Ken Douglas and similar sell-outs were my target.
Re: You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage, says Mari
My mistake.