Posts Tagged ‘minimum wage’

Workers 1, Bridges 0: Minimum Wage Rise to Go Ahead

Written By: - Date published: 3:31 pm, March 11th, 2020 - 23 comments

Labour have confirmed that they will lift the minimum adult wage on April 1st. This is great news for workers and SME’s!

Living wage rises to $20.20 an hour

Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, February 21st, 2017 - 30 comments

The living wage rises, and an odd argument for abolishing the minimum wage.

Minimum wage increase doesn’t meet real costs (the CPI is broken)

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, January 25th, 2017 - 53 comments

Any increase in the minimum wage is better than nothing, but National’s increases have not kept pace with the real cost increases (notably housing) faced by low income earners. That is why we are seeing the rise of the working poor, and increases in homelessness and poverty.

The minimum wage is not a living wage

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, March 1st, 2016 - 110 comments

Credit where it’s due for an increase in the minimum wage – but the gap between that and a living wage keeps growing…

The hairdressers of Levin and Foxton

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 13th, 2014 - 44 comments

John Key reckons increasing the minimum wage would hurt “the hairdressers in Levin or Foxton”. So Rob McCann, Labour’s candidate for Ōtaki, asked one how she felt about that.

The only way National know to grow the economy

Written By: - Date published: 5:15 pm, September 10th, 2014 - 19 comments

On Firstline this morning, John Key tried to compare National’s and Labour’s policies by saying “You can’t grow the economy when you restrict labour laws.” It’s nonsense, and it’s scary.

Labour – Raise the minimum wage

Written By: - Date published: 4:05 pm, August 1st, 2014 - 298 comments

Labour is promising to raise the minimum wage to $16.25. It’s the right thing to do. And it doesn’t cost jobs.

Mary Poppins on a minimum wage!

Written By: - Date published: 1:56 pm, July 27th, 2014 - 9 comments

Mary Poppins quitting because she isn’t being paid enough to survive on in the magical nanny trade. I guess the peasants just aren’t prepared to starve as blindly as they did in the service of their ‘betters’ as they did in Edwardian era.

It is also quite funny…

 

Derisory minimum wage

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, February 27th, 2013 - 90 comments

The minimum wage should be at least $15 per hour. A living wage is estimated at $18.40 per hour. So what have the Nats done? Raised the minimum wage by $0.25 per hour to $13.75. It’s a derisory increase. Even their own supporters think so.

Irony overload as English calls some bosses greedy

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, February 15th, 2013 - 22 comments

Irony meters everywhere pegged their meters as Bill English accused some bosses of being “greedy”, and not paying their staff enough. Hey Double Dipton – those greedy bosses? – they’re just following your example…

The race to the bottom

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, October 11th, 2012 - 21 comments

Youth rates are an admission of economic failure.

Banks and Dunne vote down minimum wage

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, September 20th, 2012 - 51 comments

David Clark’s private member’s Bill to increase the minimum wage was voted down 61 to 59 last night. Shame on John Banks and Peter Dunne.

Clark on the minimum wage

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, September 5th, 2012 - 18 comments

David Clark’s opinion piece in The Herald – “The PM’s cleaner deserves more pay” – makes for welcome reading…

Congrats on raising the minimum wage John

Written By: - Date published: 1:59 pm, February 8th, 2012 - 66 comments

Shame you couldn’t raise it to a living one though. The working poor will appreciate the extra $1000 per year coming this April, but it still won’t cover their bills…

Law firm sets out business wish list

Written By: - Date published: 7:09 am, December 1st, 2011 - 97 comments

Law firm Chapman Tripp has taken it upon itself to summarise the business community’s expectations for National’s second term.  Back to youth rates, and that’s just for starters.

Treasury on the minimum wage

Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, November 11th, 2011 - 35 comments

Labour want to raise the minimum wage to $15.  The Nats say that will cost jobs (they want to lower the minimum wage instead). Documents obtained by 3 News show that Treasury think the Nats are wrong.  A vote for increasing the minimum wage will not cost jobs.

How to put half a billion into working families’ pockets

Written By: - Date published: 6:18 am, March 9th, 2011 - 58 comments

I/S at No Right Turn has done more excellent work. He’s revealed the official advice Kate Wilkinson was given on the minimum wage. The advice says there is a trade-off between jobs and the minimum wage, but even a rise to $15 an hour would cause an increase wages for low-income earners well above the cost in jobs.

Compare and contrast

Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, February 19th, 2011 - 54 comments

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn compares the bailout of SCF investors with the Nats’ threat to change the law to deny some workers the minimum wage.

25c slap in the face

Written By: - Date published: 6:38 am, February 8th, 2011 - 77 comments

So John Key thinks that a 1.9% increase in pay will cover 4% inflation, and that’s all minimum wage workers are going to get. That 25c/hour won’t add up to a litre of milk at the end of the day, let along a block of cheese at the end of the week. A person on minimum wage will now get $437.24/week after tax, whilst JK gave himself over $1000 extra per week in tax cut.

Minimum wage crunch time

Written By: - Date published: 11:37 pm, January 25th, 2011 - 56 comments

John Key says that he can’t increase the minimum wage by a decent amount. The excuse this time round is that a decent increase will destroy jobs. Well, let’s check that out a little bit. Is it really true that lifting the minimum wages destroys jobs? If it is, do the benefits outweigh the gains? And what about the cost of letting wages fall?

Minimum wage review

Written By: - Date published: 2:08 pm, January 18th, 2011 - 243 comments

When the government, eventually, gets back from its month-long holiday, it needs to review the minimum wage. To keep up with inflation, the increase needs to be at least 50 cents an hour to $13.25. If we want to catch Australia, we should copy them and lift it to $15.

No love for workers, no quarter from National

Written By: - Date published: 10:41 am, February 13th, 2010 - 13 comments

Protests are taking place around the country today against the National Government’s miserable 25 cent increase to the minimum wage.

Minimum standards

Written By: - Date published: 1:10 pm, January 28th, 2010 - 20 comments

Year of the wolf?

Written By: - Date published: 3:55 pm, January 27th, 2010 - 115 comments

I really thought the rumour that the minimum wage would only rise by 25c had been put out by the government to make their eventual 50c or 75c decision look generous. But for a change they’ve surprised me. This is the first time in a decade the minimum wage has been cut in real terms. […]

Minimum wage: what will it be?

Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, January 27th, 2010 - 93 comments

The Government is set to announce its decision on the annual adjustment to the minimum wage today. So what’s it going to be? The three main positions out there are: Business lobby: Hold increase down to 50c an hour ($13 an hour). Unions: Step-change of $2.50 an hour ($15 an hour). Labour: $1.25 increase this […]

$15 min wage march tonight

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, October 30th, 2009 - 15 comments

The Campaign for a Living Wage will be taking to the streets of Auckland’s CBD tonight to demand a minimum wage of 15 dollars an hour and an end to poverty wages. The theme is Halloween trick or treat. If you want, you can dress up as: (a) a Zombie worker who has awoken from […]

$15 minimum wage, it’s only fair

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 29th, 2009 - 4 comments

The campaign for a $15 an hour minimum wage is gathering pace. Initially, Unite kind of set out on their own on this one but I understand they’ve got other unions on boards now. They need a bit over 300,000 signatures to force the government to hold a referendum. They’ve got until May 7, just […]

Key on wages

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 pm, March 18th, 2009 - 93 comments

Key’s speech to the CTU today showed an interesting inight into how he thinks you lift wages. NZPA reports: He said it was not good enough for New Zealand to be in the bottom third of the OECD for per-capita incomes, but was cautious about tackling the issue by lifting minimum wage rates. “In reality, […]

Strawman

Written By: - Date published: 5:38 pm, March 11th, 2009 - 56 comments

I’m always amazed at the intellectual hoops the neoliberal right will jump through to try and deny low income workers minimum wage increases. David Farrar has a piece up today highlighting the case of Honduras, where they’ve apparently raised the minimum wage by 60% in one go, causing higher unemployment. This, he says, highlights the […]

Govt set to deny low-paid workers basic rights

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, March 4th, 2009 - 24 comments

The National government couldn’t hold off democracy forever, so today we are graced with the first members’ day of the new term. And if we had a pro-worker majority in the House, today would be day of celebration. Labour MP Darien Fenton’s Minimum Wage and Remuneration Bill is up, which would go towards ensuring all […]

Employer opposes wage increases – shock!

Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, February 11th, 2009 - 33 comments

Yesterday I expressed concern about Unite’s referendum on indexing the minimum wage to two-thirds of the average wage on practical grounds while strongly supporting the idea in principle. Today in its editorial the Herald takes exception to the principle, complaining that such a move, even phased in over a three year period, would deny people […]

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