Unite director Mike Treen says he campaigned robustly to remove the rates and had the support of many high school students who went on strike.

Treen says if the government were to adopt youth rates again employees could then start to discriminate against workers young and old, by not paying them equal rates.

“They do the same work, and work side by side. Certainly it’s an abuse of workers rights. The Human Rights Commission said it was discrimination.

By allowing employers to employ young workers at a lesser rate, it’s taking advantage of younger workers.

Business NZ chief executive Phil O’Reilly says other measures have now replaced youth rates for those sectors who previously paid them.

Under the government’s ‘Job Ops’ scheme, which began in August last year workplaces can be subsidised $5000 for each young person they employ. Employers hiring staff aged 16 to 17, or between 18-24 with little skills or experience qualify.

Treen says those industries seeking to employ young people will keep doing so because of their suitability – regardless of the pay rate.
“That’s because of the time the workers are available – weekends and after school. That would suit the fast-food industry, supermarkets and the cinemas.”

Treen argues if a lesser wage was introduced it would further disadvantage those families relying on multiple incomes.

“During the 90s there was an increase in unemployment. As a consequence families depend on working longer hours and more people working. “It’s often not pocket money but it’s necessary for the families survival in difficult times.”

O’Reilly says it is the joint responsibility of the community and the government to support young people in need of work.

“New Zealand is a welfare state. I think it would be a hard call to say to a young person first entering a job that they are to provide for their family. And that’s a big ask to say to an employer you should be paying more because this person is supporting their family.”

He says youth are over-represented in the ranks of the unemployed – currently at 7.3 per cent – but the renewed debate was unlikely to result in youth rates being reinstated.

O’Reilly said he’d “be very surprised” if the bill to reintroduce them got much support.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/small-business/news/article.cfm?c_id=85&objectid=10628656

At least Roger and Rodney won’t super size the city AND mini me the wages for youth.

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Drakula,

What do you mean by “Lets get the means of production into the hands of the workers by community enterprises.” ?

And if you simply mean worker control of the means of production, how do you think this can be achieved? I’m not averse to the idea, but its all very easy to make statements like this without having a concrete plan on how to achieve the goal.

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I agree with Gareth, let’s move on into the 21st century. It is absolutely amazing as to how much power ACT can wield with such a small mandate.

They are the reactionaries, after they deny youth equal pay then it will be women and who will be next? socialists? Greens?
Lets get the means of production into the hands of the workers by community enterprises.

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Yep, SPC – check out my 3:06 PM comment yesterday on this thread, where I link to it.

Guess Roger’s sucking in the big ones now on this one.

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Darien Fenton says on red alert that he asked a written question of the Minister Kate Wilkinson and she said she did not support a minimum youth wage.

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Curious how the Greens think student associations are so lousy that students in their droves will choose to not be members, and they will dry up and shrivel.

Nothing like the issue of whether individuals should have a choice as to whether they belong to a “student representative” organisation to bring out the authoritarian in those who like student unions.

There is no more valid argument for compulsory student union membership than there is for compulsory political party membership.

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The biggest effect of a raise in minimum wage is a decrease in hours needed to be worked by the average student in order to be able to cover living costs while studying – those who earn a higer rate during the summer vacation, spend less term-time working while studying.

If we’re going to have enough qualified, motivated workers in ten years time (or so) when all the baby-boomers peak retirement ages are reached, as a society we need to nurture our future replacement workforce – or else a whole lot more folk are going to have to work past 65 just to keep the lights on here in Aotearoa.

We need qualified young people to get into the workforce and stay here, so that there are experienced workers ready to take up the slack when the huge retirement bulge begins.
Alienating young workers so that they follow Bill English’s advice, and ‘go overseas until they’re thirty’, coming back like godwits to breed, is too short-sighted.

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A 2004 Treasury paper, 3 years after the youth wage was abolished, says:

“We find no robust evidence of adverse effects on youth employment or hours worked. In fact, we find stronger evidence of positive employment responses to the changes for both groups of teenagers, and that 16-17 year-olds increased their hours worked by 10-15 percent following the minimum wage changes. Given the absence of any adverse employment effects, we find significant increases in labour earnings and total income of teenagers relative to young adults.”

http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/research-policy/wp/2004/04-03

Why do youth have to be working? Shouldn’t we be encouraging them back into education. Shouldn’t they actually be having a youth?

It must also be noted that youth unemployment isn’t that big of an issue. People under 18 who don’t live with their families and aren’t in education are in a minority.

We need to nurture our youth, not make them slaves to the all mighty dollar before their childhood is up.

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@peteremcc 11:32 AM

Questions for written answer:

1039 (2010). Darien Fenton to the Minister of Labour (12 Feb 2010): Is she in favour of reinstating a minimum youth wage rate?

Hon Kate Wilkinson (Minister of Labour) replied: No

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The fact remains that increasing the cost of youth employees without decreasing the risk of employing them, vs an adult, results in higher unemployment for youth workers.

What Hughes advocates results in more youth unemployment, not less.

http://tinyurl.com/yl59je4

The recession is part of it, but it doesn’t explain such a wide margin between youth and adults.

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@rimu – the thing is the amount that the VUWSA gets at the moment could have easily been invested so as to allow for cafes, pubs, uni shops. It is a student group that does not act in the interests of students simply

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How have I derailed anything? Were posters forced to respond to me?

I guess they felt they had to, and I know the reason for that

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I know you know the post wasn’t well thought out.

I know you know we’ve exposed yet another of your straw men. Despite that, this one’s been very effective as its completely derailed the the discussion from the real issues. As was intended.

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We’ve got a new general debate thread, folks

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Red Alert seem to still think they’re the government.

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Red Alert reckons Douglas’ bill is dead in the water.

(Not old Douglas , his curmudgeonly bill)

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$10/hr in Work > $3-$4/hr on Unemployment Benefit. EOM.

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Is Roger anti-youth?

Yes.

He’s also anti-pig.

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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.

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