The union for retail workers is urging MPs to vote today to send minimum wage bill originally aimed at ending minimum wage discrimination against 16 and 17 year olds to Parliament's committee stage where further amendments can be considered.

Sue Bradford's Minimum Wage (Abolition of Age Discrimination) Bill has been renamed the Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill by a select committee and amended to allow government to continue youth rates for 16 and 17 year olds, either until they turn 18 or until they have served an unspecified period in the workforce. The select committee has recommended using the new "new entrant" provision to apply the current youth wage to 16 and 17 year olds with less than 200 hours employment since their 16th birthday.

"Unions and young workers have been expressing their disappointment at the select committee recommendations" says Laila Harré, National Secretary of the National Distribution Union which represents retail workers. "We can see that the Select Committee has tried to find a halfway house here, but it's a very leaky one" says Harré.

The retail sector is the biggest employer of young people (65% of young workers are shop employees) and the application of youth rates is widespread.

The NDU, Unite and the CTU Youth Union Movement have launched www.EndYouthRatesNow.com to help call on people who back equal pay to march in Auckland on Saturday 11 August at 12 noon from Britomart in an effort to persuade parties to end youth rates.

"Our numbers show that 50 per cent of 16 and 17 year olds would take 5 months or more to qualify for the full minimum wage. Some of them will have turned 18 long before that. Others will have had many more than 200 hours work experience before turning 16 but that isn't going to be counted."

"The suggestion that a full adult wage for 16 and 17 year olds will encourage them to leave school shows no understanding of the youth rates market. Shops do not want full time youth workers. They want bright young students who can do a few hours to a week to cover the busy times. In fact the 200 hours will itself be an incentive for students to work as many hours as they can to get a 20% pay rise."

"This Bill can be fixed up and we urge parties to vote for it tonight so that work to improve it can continue."

ENDS

Contacts:

Laila Harré, NDU National Secretary on 021 839 661 Simon Oosterman, NDU Media Liaison on 021 922 551