Advocating for the Living Wage

The Living Wage Movement emerged in 2012 to address the growing number of working poor in Aotearoa. The movement brings together diverse groups around a common cause.

The Living Wage is a wage that enables workers to live with dignity and to participate as active citizens in society.  Faith groups, community organisations and unions came together in the new social movement and united around their common concern about poverty and inequality.

The Methodist Church of New Zealand was active from the very early days. In late 2012, the Methodist Conference endorsed the new movement with a theological statement supported by church leaders. Since the National launch of the Living Wage Movement Aotearoa NZ, the movement has grown, and campaigns have been won in wealthy corporates, including the entire banking sector, local and central government and small-to-medium businesses and NGOs. These campaigns have transformed the lives of thousands of low-paid workers. 

The central principle of the three-way alliance in the Living Wage Movement – the partnership of community organisations, unions and faith groups – is fundamental to the power-building strategy.  Achieving social justice and eradicating poverty form part of the scriptural teaching that unites many faith groups.

Faith groups of many denominations have played a big role in the movement over the past 12 years and continue to do so. As people of faith, we are driven by values of fairness and equity and committed to living by the values of Jesus Christ and the gospel imperative. Jesus was asked which is the greatest commandment. Matthew, Mark and Luke all record Jesus’ answer, “Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and then love your neighbour as yourself.” This passage goes to the heart of the Gospel message. The Love of God is inseparable from treating our “neighbours” as we would expect to be treated. Jesus is saying that all of humanity are our neighbours.

I came from the village of Hautu, Tonga, to New Zealand as an adult. I took on work as a labourer and later enrolled in a polytechnic course.  I married Seluvaia Tongi’aepau, and we have four children.  The student allowance I received was not enough to feed the family, and I took on a full-time cleaning job.  Living on a cleaner’s wage was hard, and I joined the queue at the food bank.  I eventually gained a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration and became the manager at Porirua Union and Community Health Service, a Medical Centre in Cannons Creek, Porirua. I was ordained as a Methodist minister in 2010. 

When I was a cleaner, my family and  I experienced the impact of poverty.   At our health service, we see the impact of low wages on the community every single day.   Porirua Union and Community Health Service is actively involved in the Living Wage Movement and strongly supports it.  Although our funding is very tight, we have ensured that we pay all our workers a living wage.   Three of the other community service providers that I am involved with at governance level, Wellington Tongan Leaders Council under the Pasifika Future Whanau Ora, Siaola under the Vahefonua Tonga in Auckland and Wesley Community Action in Wellington, also witness and share common concerns about the impact of poverty.

The Medical Centre in Porirua joined the Living Wage Movement in response to the hardship and struggle we see around us. The Living Wage Movement brings a much-needed message of hope.  It is a message about all workers being valued and respected and being paid, not just enough to barely survive, but enough to lead a decent life and participate in society.   The local Living Wage Movement brings together people of faith, people from the community and others from unions who have united because we want the very best for our children and our families.

I call for Te Hahi Weteriana o Aotearoa, our social service providers and individuals to get involved in the local Living Wage Movement and stand up and speak up for the Living Wage businesses and for the Living Wage in local and central government and schools.

The Living Wage Movement is running a national campaign to ensure all workers at schools are on a minimum of the Living Wage rate. Until we have won the Living Wage for the lowest paid, who are often contracted cleaners, we have work to do.   I quote from Ex-President Tovia Aumua and Ex-Vice-President Arapera Ngaha, Methodist Church of New Zealand Te Hahi Weteriana o Aotearoa, “A Living Wage is essential if Aotearoa is to be a just and fair society in which all families have the resources they need to be able to participate and flourish.”

Methodist Connections to the Birth of the Labour Movement

The early Methodist Church is closely associated with the birth of the Labour movement.  Five of the six Tolpuddle Martyrs were Methodist. George Loveless, the leader, was a Methodist Lay Preacher. 

They are acknowledged as the founders of trade unionism in the Western World.  They learnt to read and write in the Methodist Sunday Schools, which assisted them greatly in efforts to organise their fellow agriculture workers.  Much of the structure and terminology in the Labour movement and the Methodist Church illustrates the common roots: for example – Parish Steward and Shop Steward (now known as job delegates). 

In 1833, the Tolpuddle Martyrs swore allegiance to the Friendly Society of Agricultural Workers, and the impetus for its creation was the gradual lowering of agricultural wages.  An act that saw them deported to Australia but had to be returned after a remarkable 50,000 people in the UK demonstrated against their harsh treatment.  Subsequently, 800,000 people signed a petition supporting their return from Australia. They were known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs because they came from the Dorset village of Tolpuddle.