Quick post coz doing electorate stuff but couldn’t resist sharing the Spotless results. These people are currently offering parliamentary cleaners a 25c wage increase that would take them to $12.80/hour despite employing cleaners (sometimes the same people) at $14.62/hour in hospitals and schools.
Their net profit after tax has increased by 40.8% to over $24 million. Their earnings per share is up 25%.
Message to CEO Farnik – stop screwing our cleaners. Maybe you should pay $15 not $14.62/ hour. But $12.80/hour for parliamentary cleaners is just not enough.
Previous posts by Rick, Clare, and Darien.
I look forward to indiana’s comments. base don her arguments yesterday companies like Spotless would have to lay people off if they had to raise wages or lose contracts…
a Couple of questions – if Farnik offers jobs to people – how they heck is he screwing them? If they dont want the job and were not happy with the wages they would not have accepted it.
And secondly – why the big push for $15 (a 20%ish) rise only now that Nats govern the country.
Labour were quite happy to have the cleaners on $12.50 when they were in power. Heck you could have addressed the contract to ensure that the cleaners were on $15 – but you didnt.
your arguments just dont stand up – its just pandering.
Man that’s disgusting ripping off those poor cleaners.
I wonder when the CEO gets his bonus for increased profit? Or will he not get one cos of the Recession?
March 08 Labour led Government signed a Principles Agreement for better cleaning idustry with all the major stakeholders. Wages for cleaners then was $11.30/hr. 08 ended with cleaner on $12.55. the biggest pay rise they ever got. When the change in Government came about Labour had already set in place provisions to deliver $14.62/hr to School cleaners. another major rise. Unfortunatedly with the change of Governement, this rate could NOT be delivered for cleaners outside Hospitals and Schools, thus the cry for fariness. e.g.School cleaner gets $14.62, but the cleaner cleaning Min of Ed National office gets $12.55/hr. where’s the fairness J Key talks about? This is why the present Government has to be consistent and fair. The Nats talk about better jobs and a skilled work force. 25 cents is not goin to deliver it, all it does is create poverty wages. So if we do not like it change jobs? What jobs have beed created by the Nats? Brigther Future? Labour did what? Labour acted on its promises to us cleaners, that’s what happened when they were there!Labour delivers, Nats promises?
So Mr Keil – what you are saying is that labour only thought that the cleaner for Min of Ed National office was worth $12.55/h 15 months ago when they left government – if they thought different they would have done something about it in all the years they were in power. Labour delivers – thats rubbish – the actual fact is that they didnt deliver where they say it counts – with the actual money.
Now – when they know they cannot be held to account they make mindless chants about $15 per hour – when there is no way they could or would have done it themselves.
National being in parliment and then paying their cleaners less than everyone else pays their cleaners? Wheres the suprise in all this? Is there some sort of punchline coming? Nobody would expect anything else.
Spotlight had the catering contract at the Polytech I attended, they were almost always grumpy and unhelpful and prices got ramped slowly over the 2 years I spent there.
Never really liked SSL since, and i see their ethic goes right to the top.
With those sorts of profit margins there should be reinvestment in the business; the best reinvestment is in people, surely?! Retain people, get them better equipment, conditions, even adjustments for inflation??
Cleaning may be a largely ‘unskilled’ role but the market sets the rate, so cleaners performing similar tasks should have similar pay rates. Those working in sensitive spaces (govt, etc) may perhaps be worth more rather than less??
Bikerkiwi is right – more crocodile tears from Labour, who had NINE YEARS to give the cleaners a wage rise to $15 an hour (or whatever they now deem is acceptable).
For goodness sake. Just shows how ignorant of how wages are set for low income people these Nact people are. Agreements are for a fixed term. Schools, hospitals and some other places came up before the election and they are on $14.62, others didn’t and are on $12.55. And if Richard and bikerkiwi think thats fair they should swap.
@mallard – agreement and wages do not need to be linked (although bidding would be based off a known wage base).
However if labour were actually serious – they simply could have made an ammendum to the contract ensuring that the wages were addressed.
OR – they could have ensured that the mim wage was raised to $15 last year – which of course they didnt. again – sorry I think this is just posturing and if you had been in power you would not have done it either.
Trev, surely you can see where we are coming from and how hypocritical it looks for you to have a private members bill in to raise the minimum wage to $15 p/hour in opposition. What was Labour policy in the 2008 election on minimum wage?
Trevor
Now you’ve wrecked bikerkiwi’s straw man…
Trevor’s right. Righties on this blog clearly have no idea how complex this issue is, and the efforts Labour went to to fix it. Firstly, we had to stop the situation where repetitive contracting was driving down wages (where it didn’t matter what the wages were with the first contractor, because a second contractor could come in and drive those wages down, either through pay cuts, or cuts to hours, or by sacking all workers). That took an amendment to the ERA in 2004, which was rabidly opposed by National. This had to be amended to strengthen it in 2006. Next problem : It’s not just the contractors like SSL, although they are particularly awful sometimes. The relationship where workers are contracted out is three-way. What had been happening is that government buildings and parliamentary services were shoving off responsibility for low wages to the contractor – saying in effect “its not our problem, we don’t employ these people”. What the Principles Agreement Mea’ole refers to was about the state, as the client for cleaners in government buildings, (including parliament), along with the contractors and the union taking responsibility for delivering higher quality and better wages in the industry. In Hospitals and Schools, additional funding was provided and targeted to ensure the cleaners wages were increased. Cleaners were next on the list for a pay jolt, but they’ve been in bargaining for a year under National and what’s happened? Zilch.
The parliamentary cleaners I have talked to don’t give a stuff about the tit-for-tat about what Labour did or didn’t do but whether all MPs will come together (as per Darien Fenton’s letter) to urge Parliamentary Services to make it a condition of the service contract for Spotless and other subsequent contractors to pay their cleaners a living wage.
The reason the union has picked $14.62, even though it is quite low, is that this is the minimum wage paid to cleaners in other public service areas such public hospitals and schools.
The British Parliament has recently accepted the importance of establishing a living wage for their cleaners. I cannot see why the NZ Parliament cannot do the same.
Isn’t it sad when we find ourselves discussing if cleaners should earn a living wage… that anyone ought to be on a living wage was supposed to be accepted in a “civilized” country. Sometimes I feel I am in the same place as 1880 industrial England… When I talk to my students about the history of employment law or health and safety, I take them back to the turn of that century to explain what things used to be like and how people like Parnell were pioneers and so on… NZ led the world in SO many areas back then…
The main arguments of the right on this completely falter when it is pointed out to them that even in times of relative prosperity, the National Party does NOT move minimum wages. National loves telling us all to tighten our belts and wait for the better times, to wait because times are not good (recession – even though English said it was over)… yet they have never raised wages for the low end workers in good times.
Its simple realy. If this is realy a low skilled job, it would be good to see how long parliament would run if they went on strike and politicians had to clean there own toilets.
Suddenly $14.62 per hour wouldnt seem like a lot money to pay per hour.
Can anyone seriously see Rodger Douglas cleaning????
We might find the answer to this question Waterboy if this dispute is not resolved soon.
I completely agree with paying people a living wage, but why is it just cleaners that have been singled out for this? There are plenty of occupations in NZ that are often paid well below $14.62 – what about hospitality and cafe work, retail, teacher aides, caregivers/healthcare assistants, factory work, labouring, and even some office work? These people all work hard and no one’s helping them out…I have done cleaning before and I know it’s tough, but I think the fairest course of action is to raise the minimum wage for everyone!
Yay for Trev for putting up a bill to get those people the $15.
Casey – I agree with you, it’s just the discussion specifically addressed cleaners.
These people are currently offering parliamentary cleaners a 25c wage increase that would take them to $12.80/hour despite employing cleaners (sometimes the same people) at $14.62/hour in hospitals and schools.
Then why don’t those cleaners get jobs in hospitals and schools?
How much did you pay your cleaners when you were Minister Trevor? How much did cleaners earn while cleaning your Ministerial pad? How much did they get paid to clean your office?
Minimum wage, I bet. This is such a beat up and another example of Labour’s hypocrisy of its rhetoric in Opposition vs. its record in Government.
@Hoolian – I didn’t have a ministerial house. There was a margin above the minimum wage much more than 5c for cleaning my office. Hospitals and schools went up to $14.62 and parliament would have too when their agreement came up.
Not sure if you are offshore or sleep deprived but get one or two facts right before you make an idiot of yourself.
There was a margin above the minimum wage much more than 5c for cleaning my office.
Well that’s good to hear. But what was the wage? In the pursuit of transparency, why not just tell us how much cleaners were paid to clean your office?
I’m offshore, my friend – offshore with countless other young Kiwis who joined a massive exodus out of NZ during your Government…
John Ryall asserts the point that the British Government has done something about a living wage for cleaning staff. This is factually incorrect. The minimum wage for a mature worker in the UK is £5.85. The living wage he is refering to is a London living wage which I think is around £7.45/ hour. This was forced through by direct action by people involved in office cleaning in Canary Wharf embarassing the rich bankers who’s offices they clean. It is not widespread and many staff in central London are still on NMW. Believe me both wage rates are impossible for someone to bring a family up on properly (hence the immigration policy in the uk?)
I also wouldn’t get carried away by the zealot calls about the excessive profits that the cleaner’s employers are making. Usually contract cleaning firms make a net profit of less than 5% with employee direct cost wages being around 75% of their costs. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that there is no ‘fat on the bone’. Why? because Joe Public while happy to rant and rail about lower paid jobs isn’t actually prepared to pay for a proper living wage as they are on the bones of their *rses themselves and aren’t prepared to pay more.
I think the exchange rate is £1.00 = $2.22NZ but remember the cost of living in the UK is far higher than in NZ e.g one litre of diesel = £1.14 / $2.53