Thanks to our Member Groups, supporters, workers, and campaigners, the super city will now take its first steps toward a Living Wage after the June 1 decision of the Council Governing Body to endorse a Living Wage for directly employed staff across the Council and its CCOs. 

It is four years of connecting our communities around their shared passion for decent wages; it has been four years of delegations, deputations, people’s assemblies, research, reports, submissions, stories and rallies; it was the 2016 commitment from a new aspiring mayor, Phil Goff at St Matthew-in-the-City, in front of hundreds of Aucklanders, that secured this victory. 

Workers like Mayoral office cleaner, Malia Lagi, who told her story to a packed election forum in 2016, represent the next step in this journey. Mayor Phil Goff committed to paying the Living Wage to directly employed workers first and contracted workers second. We know you can’t have one without the other; to do so will just drive further contracting out as councils seek to cut costs by expanding their competitive tendering of services. We will be there in 2019 to ensure Malia and all other contracted workers are not forgotten.