Low wage workers who qualify for WINZ help

Hello,

My name is Mikey, I’m one of the workers at Auckland Action Against Poverty. AAAP would like to invite your low-waged members to take part in our Beneficiary Impact on the 10th-12th of September, outside of the Work and Income offices at New Lynn (5/9 Hugh Brown Dr), in order to assist your workers in receiving any possible financial support they are eligible for.

AAAP are running our second Impact event outside the New Lynn Work and Income office. The purpose of this event is to carry out large scale advocacy to ensure low-waged workers and the unemployed are able to receive the full financial support they are eligible for. Last year we assisted around 200 people to receive their full entitlements, and gain extra support to buy necessary items, such as fridges etc.

AAAP “Beneficiary Impact” stall

As many low-waged, under-employed workers are also eligible to receive financial support from Work and Income, we thought that some of the members of your union who are low-waged may benefit from this Impact event. This is also a good public tactic to shame employers, by showing that their workers are so under-paid/underemployed that they are eligible for support from Work and Income.

Below this message is a detailed list of different circumstances in which low-paid workers are eligible for Work and Income assistance.

If your members are keen to use our advocates during this event, please let us know. Ideally, we would be keen to know numbers, and perhaps book a specific time slot for your union in particular. As these events can be slow in building momentum, we would particularly be keen to organise a time early on the first day of this Impact, the 10th of September, to assist low-waged union members.

In solidarity,

Michael Brenndorfer
021 104 8437
Assistance Coordinator
Auckland Action Against Poverty

LOW WAGE WORKERS WHO QUALIFY FOR WINZ HELP

Low wage workers who may qualify for some form of Work and Income entitlement would be those workers who earn less than the following amounts per week:

For a single person aged 16 or 17 years without dependent children – $468.23
For any other single person without dependent children – $538.15
For a person who is married or in a civil union or in a de facto relationship with or without dependent children – $781.62
For a sole parent with 1 dependent child – $653.01
For any other sole parent – $687.98

And low wage workers who may be entitled to a disability allowance would be those who earn less than the following per week:

For a single person aged 16 or 17 years without dependent children – $506.01
For any other single person without dependent children – $585.67
For a person who is married or in a civil union or in a de facto relationship with or without dependent children – $866.91
For a sole parent with 1 dependent child – $705.72
For any other sole parent – $743.53

AUCKLAND UNITE MEMBERS: Please email support@unite if you want to take part in the AAAP Impact on September 10 in New Lynn, Auckland and we will arrange a suitable time for you.

Unite decries WINZ wage subsidy to McDonald’s

Unite Union is questioning the $270,000 paid by WINZ as a wage subsidy to McDonald’s between July 2009 and June 2013.

“This subsidy is only for the stores directly owned by the US fast food giant. 80% of stores in New Zealand are franchisee owned so the probable subsidy could be in the millions” said Unite National Director Mike Treen.

“We do not believe McDonald’s needs to be subsidised to employ workers. They are a huge multinational making billions of dollars in profits. Their employment agreements don’t even guarantee any hours for most staff from week to week. Moreover for the period of this subsidy we have discovered that McDonald’s has been a serial law breaker in relation to rest and meal breaks.

“We are in the process of taking McDonald’s to court because they have consistently failed to provide 30-minute meal breaks to workers working shifts over 4 hours as required by law since April 2009. Based on figures from two stores – one owned by the McOpCo parent and one by a franchisee – over a four month period they have breached the law 100 times a month. If this were multiplied by all 161 stores since the April 2009 law change there could be 80,000 legal breaches. McDonald’s has also cheated workers out of an estimated $2.5 million in compensation for these breaks as required in the union’s collective agreement. .

“Unite is also concerned that the company accounts appear to be designed to minimise the payment of tax in this country. McDonald’s NZ pays a far higher franchise fee to its parent than is the case in other countries. They have also taken out a huge ‘loan’ to pay the US giant $150 million and so ‘boost its tax deductable interest expense in coming years‘.

“Our question is why should a wealthy multinational that cheats the taxpayer and its workers deserve a subsidy from the taxpayer. It doesn’t make any sense.”