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American Rebels and American Idiots!
Join us on the last big stalls of the Living Wage Campaign before Christmas, and then join us for our celebratory drinks and party afterwards at Tom Fordes Front Bench Bar 122 Anzac Avenue on both nights.
AUCKLAND COROMANDEL and THAMES MANAWATU & WANGANUI
How i$ life living on a low wage?
Everything started on the 25th of June. It was 4 o´clock in the morning when I was waiting in the International Airport of Auckland to be picked up by someone who had been sent by my school. During those minutes my mind was pondering a huge variety of different possible scenarios of my future life here in Auckland. What I didn’t realise was the fact that I would have to try to survive for 6 months working for a restaurant which would not pay me more than 12.50 dollars per hour because that is the minimum wage. Living on this is not as easy as you see your few dollars running out while you pay your rent, buy your food, buy your ten bus pass ride card - and while you buy your international phone card to call your family and tell them that you are alive. Another thing that makes the situation worst is that you are not going to receive all the 12.50 dollars per hour worked because you have to pay taxes, so more or less you will get 10.50 dollars per hour. Let’s do some basic calculations: if you work 20 hours a week you will get $210, having paid taxes, and you will have to pay 150 dollars per week for your rent and if your flat is an excellent option it may include power, water and internet; but it is almost impossible to find a flat with those facilities. Cutting your budget even more, you will have to buy food, buy things that you need for school, buy your bus tickets and have a beer with your friend in a pub with the remaining 70 dollars that you got after having paid your rent. If you are a student who came to New Zealand to study and at the same time to work to make your living and also to save some money looking for a great holiday trip in the South Island or in any of the beautiful places that this country has in the countryside, let me tell you that with the present minimum wage you cannot do that because it will might cover your everyday expenditure and that´s all. Having said these things I can now answer the question which introduced this story. The answer is that life is not quite fair, the reason: you are working hard to make your living and you see that your huge effort is not showing good results, and for this reason you can see many immigrants with two, three and even four jobs apart from their daily activities like studying a diploma or a language course. The money they get from their employers makes life hard and stressful- realising that your weekly payment will not be enough to meet your basic needs. You need to have a very good, positive outlook to live in these conditions because sometimes the results of your effort are not encouraging you to keep going in the adventure of surviving in New Zealand with a low wage……That’s why it’s so important that organisations like Unite are fighting for the rights of all poor workers, whether we are from New Zealand or overseas. Having said that, let’s do our little bit at grass roots level….let’s get more signatures for the petition to get a higher and fairer minimum wage. Sebastian Londoño Mora, The Minimum Wage Machine
More from the same artist here. See you next week |
Get in touch with the $15 campaign Send a text to 029 445 5702 or email to sign up as a working class hero.
Order a bulk order of badges (30 cents each) and T-shirts ($15 each) from the Unite office - click here. Click here for more campaign information. Joe wants you!
Website: www.unite.org.nz National Office |
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The $15 an hour Campaign for a Living Wage has been initiated by Unite union. To subscribe to this newsletter please use this link. |
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Many of the multi nationals that pay low wages in New Zealand are run by Corporates in the U.S. and A. We're building a movement against these 
LAST WEEKS STALLS
An American Rebel - Sebastian from Colombia speaks about life for an immigrant worker on the breadline.
The minimum wage machine allows anybody to work for minimum wage. Turning the crank will yield one penny every 5.04 seconds, for US$7.15 an hour (NY state minimum wage). If the participant stops turning the crank, they stop receiving money. The machine's mechanism and electronics are powered by the hand crank, and pennies are stored in a plexiglas box.
Put the $15 an hour web banner on your website or blog - click 