May 10, 2021
Fair pay push to benefit Maori workers
The Council of Trade Unions is welcoming the proposed fair pay agreements legislation – but it’s promising a fight over any public sector pay freeze.
National secretary Richard Wagstaff says fair pay agreements, where 10 percent of workers in a sector can ask for a negotiation to set minimum standards for the whole industry, should improve wages, conditions and safety standards in sectors like forestry with a high Māori workforce.
It will also end the race to the bottom which leads to problems like the Wellington bus contracts where potential providers compete by driving down employee wages.
He says in the public sector the government wants to address ethnic and gender inequities, including low pay among Māori public servants, but the unions believe that can be done without penalising other staff.
"We have an expectation of proper bargaining, of getting increases and we are not stepping back from that, so in the state sector there is quite a contest of wills going on and that will be settled at the bargaining table and maybe beyond, but for the wider economy and I think probably more importantly in the long run we have fair pay agreements looking extremely promising for the whole of the economy and not just the public sector," Mr Wagstaff says.
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