‘More than 1000 workers will have their lives improved through the Living Wage’
Dunedin City Council has become the second council in New Zealand to pay its staff a living wage.
The Council is among those who joined the 2019 list of fully accredited New Zealand Living Wage Employers which have been unveiled in Dunedin.
It follows Wellington City Council who achieved full accreditation last year.
More than 150 employers who now pay the Living Wage to their directly employed and contracted workers.
The full list was unveiled on Monday at a special event hosted by Dunedin’s Mayor, Dave Cull.
Felicia Scherrer, the Accreditation Coordinator for the Living Wage Movement Aotearoa New Zealand, said the impact of Dunedin City Council’s decision to become Aotearoa’s second Accredited Living Wage Council is significant.
“More than 1000 workers will have their lives improved through the Living Wage, as well as all indirectly employed workers delivering a service to the Council,” said Scherrer.
“As an Accredited Living Wage Employer, the Council is role modelling what best business practice looks like.”
Moreover, joining the list this year are AMP Capital Investors (NZ) Limited, AdviceFirst Limited and Western Springs College, which is the country’s first accredited Living Wage secondary school.
Smaller businesses include Scout Hair (the first hairdresser), Mai Day Spa (the first massage therapist), and the Remedy Espresso Bar.
Scherrer added that the number of Living Wage Employers continues to rise as more businesses adopt the Living Wage as the benchmark for “paying an ethical and fair wage”.
“The commitment to paying the Living Wage has, for some time, been led by small to medium sized businesses, who felt strongly that this was the right thing to do,” said Scherrer.
“Through their leadership and the success of these businesses, we now have larger organisations and corporations, also committing to paying the Living Wage.
“They too have realised investing in their workers is an investment in their business.”
