Published 1 October 2020

Paying the living wage - an essential part of a fair and equal society 

The idea of an essential worker has done a favour to the living wage movement because a lot of what we call essential workers are not paid the living wage. The irony of it is that some of the highest-paid people in our society are not deemed, essential workers.

We sat down with a couple of our partners to hear what being Living Wage Accredited meant to them.

Sustainability Trust

We are Sustainability Trust, a social enterprise in Wellington on a journey to create warm, dry, healthy homes while also helping people reduce their impact on the environment.

We sat down with our Chief Executive, Georgie Ferrari to talk about paying the living wage, the importance of unions and why Australia has better working conditions than us. 

“Obviously it is important to value and pay your staff well. As organisations, anything we can do to draw a line in the sand to say that this is a reasonable wage to pay, and this is what we should be paying staff at the bare minimum, is a good thing.” 

“The concept of the living wage is one that says that the living wage is the absolute bottom safety net. It factors in things like being able to afford your rent, feed your kids and being able to fix or replace your washing machine if it breaks. I’d like to see someone afford a new washing machine on a minimum wage salary.” 

“What I liked about the living wage accreditation process, is that it wasn’t just increasing wages and that’s it.”

“Of course, we had to review all of our contracts with contractors and make sure they were paying their staff the living wage when they were working for us. That is the depth it goes to in terms of being accredited. We had to do a deal with our cleaning company. For the hours those cleaners worked for us, we had to make sure they got the living wage. Naturally, our costs went up and we had to make sure that money was being passed on to the staff and not being put into the pockets of the managers - which we did.” 

“You also have to encourage your staff to join a union.” 

“For me after living in Australia for 17 years, I got a bit of a wage shock when I came back to NZ. I’m by no means a union expert, but one of the reasons Australia has such good-paying conditions is that it has a really strong union movement. The way things played out in the 70s and 80s meant union movement in NZ suffered some really big blows (successive Governments took steps to undermine and destabilise the union movement making it much harder for people to mobilise), whereas it didn’t in Australia. That’s why Australia has things like long service leave, good paid maternity leave and a minimum of 4 weeks annual leave. All thanks to unions.”

So, you’d say you’re pro-union?

“Definitely, I’ve always been pro-union. If you want to be pro-worker, you have to be pro-union. It doesn’t matter if you’re a manager or a CE, it makes sense to be pro-union because all unions want to do is ensure better terms, better conditions, better pay for staff. And that’s not at odds with my style of management - cause I want that too. I want happy people working in a good trusty, lovely, organisation.” 

Any words for those thinking about getting Living Wage Accredited? 

“Don’t worry about cost. Costs are minor, especially if the message you want to send about your kaupapa is that people are important and people need to live.”

Nocar Cargo 

Nocar Cargo is a no emission cycle courier service in Wellington. Made up of three full-timers (Jamie, Christian and Chris who co-own the business) and two part-timers, this cycle squad promises same-day delivery across Wellington CBD that is competitive, sustainable, ethical and fast. 

Here’s what Christian Williams, cycle courier and part-owner of Nocar Cargo had to say about paying the living wage.

“From the moment Jamie and I bought the business we knew that we were going to pay the living wage.” 

“I’ve always felt pretty strongly about the living wage movement. If that is what has been determined to be a wage that can support people to live with dignity, respect, cover all their needs and allow them to live a decent life, then I think it should be the minimum wage for the country. I think if you can’t afford to pay that, then it’s not really a viable business.” 

“I also believe that it's a really important part of creating a fair and equitable society. For us, social sustainability ties into environmental sustainability. There is no way you can have one without the other. So yeah, I feel strongly about the movement to pay the living wage and feel very proud to support it.”

You can follow them on Facebook, Instagram or find them online at  www.nocarcargo.co.nz/

Garage Project

Many of you will likely already be familiar with Garage Project, a popular, independent brewery on Aro Street. What started as a three-man project out of a dilapidated garage in 2011 has grown into an award-winning business, which has created over 300 different beers and now employs 75 staff.

Sustainability Trust has been working with Garage Project on our Sustainability In Brewing project, looking at ways to reduce the amount of waste that they are sending to landfill. Garage Project is passionate about sustainability of all kinds, which was one of the reasons that led them to becoming Living Wage Accredited. 

Anca Miller, HR Manager of Garage Project, spoke about their desire to “provide economic sustainability for our team. Making sure that we are providing good wages for them so they have stability is important to us.” 

“I would encourage anyone that was considering it - or even if they weren’t - to go for it because it shows that your organisation cares about its people. I think the return on investment goes a really long way in terms of retention of staff and also the attraction of good staff. It also ties into the general social responsibility that every organisation has.”

Anca was responsible for completing the application and had this to say about the process: “It was great - I had a lot of support from the Coordinator and they were contactable throughout. The application itself was really straightforward.”

You can find them on Facebook, Instagram or find them online at  https://garageproject.co.nz/

Genesis

Genesis is a GenTailer company, meaning they generate and sell energy. In April this year (during lockdown), they became the first company in their field to become Living Wage Accredited.

As long time sponsors of the Wellington Curtain Bank (more than ten years of support), we sat down with Vicki (Head of Reward and Group Manager People and Culture) and Hannah (Reward Manager) to talk about their two-year journey to becoming Living Wage Accredited.

"The two-year journey was never due to people dragging their feet. We all agreed with the principle behind it and knew it was the right thing to do. For an organisation of our size (1,065 people) with multiple offices, we had to review several contracts as well as realign our remuneration policies." 

"We've got a strong pay for performance philosophy. You do well, you get rewarded. What being Living Wage Accredited meant for us is that we had to rework some of our reward practices and messaging to reflect that some increases were to do with changes to the living wage and not due to performance. If someone didn't perform as well as we'd like them to, they'd still get the living wage increase, but we'd also work to help them improve."

"There were about 150 direct employees who benefited from the uplift, and as you can imagine, the response has been hugely positive, massively heart-warming. Our CE shared a story about how one of our cleaning ladies at the Greenlane office stopped him in the lunchroom, thanked him and cried. Stories like this make being living wage accredited so worthwhile."

"One thing we didn't think about was the flow-on effect. One of our security companies believes that by paying the living wage with us, actually helped them land a contract with someone else - a cool and unexpected effect."

Any last words for other businesses thinking about being living wage accredited?

"Yeah, weigh up the pro and cons. Think about how it fits in with your business model as well as policies, practices and budgets - if you can make it work, then just do it. It is the right thing to do by your people."

You can follow them on Facebook, or find them online at https://www.genesisenergy.co.nz/