Whanganui District Council shuts down living wage policy during annual plan deliberations

The living wage debate has again reared its head in the Whanganui District Council chambers.

The council deliberated on its annual plan this week, with one submission coming from Living Wage Whanganui (LWW) representative Marion Sanson.

She said LWW had been striving for the council to “gain the accolade” of living wage accreditation but the honour had gone to Kāpiti Coast District Council last December.

Councillors were split the last time the issue was on the table in 2021, meaning the chief executive remained responsible for staff pay rates.

In response to Sanson’s request this time around, the council said officers would not review that decision unless instructed otherwise.

Councillor Josh Chandulal-Mackay requested a resolution – that chief executive David Langford makes an options report on the living wage to be presented at a future committee meeting.

Chandulal-Mackay said it was the latest iteration of a campaign “spanning three councils and about seven years”.

“It always produces a fairly animated response from my colleague opposite [Councillor Rob Vinsen], who has his mic on and is ready to go.

“What this report would entertain, amongst a number of options, would be adopting the living wage as a matter of policy which would require an obligation on the chief executive to not employ anyone below the living wage.”

He understood the council did not currently pay anyone less than the living wage, Chandulal-Mackay said.

Councillor Jenny Duncan said she hoped anyone working for the council was able to pay grocery, power and petrol bills.

“I would love to see [living wage] enshrined in a policy, which currently isn’t the case.”

New Zealand’s living wage will rise to $26 an hour in September, an increase of 9.9 per cent ($2.35) on the 2022/23 rate.

Vinsen said the living wage was “a political movement” that had gone around the world.

“I’m surprised my colleague [Chandulal-Mackay] doesn’t have his [LWW] T-shirt on, like the others that present on the living wage each time.

“The chief executive has said in the past that it’s his policy to ensure wages are relative to every other employee.

“Once you start interfering with an artificial system like a living wage, you remove a lot of that possibility.”

Langford said he thought there were risks for the council having an unofficial policy position on paying the living wage.

“The most obvious would be a bit of an ethical dilemma over our motivations for using contracted labour, particularly in sectors such as facilities cleaning – the kind of areas that are already flagged as high risk for labour exploitation,” he said.

“We need to come to a definitive and much clearer position on these things with due time.”

He said he was comfortable with Chandulal-Mackay’s resolution and would be more concerned if councillors voted against him bringing the report to council.

“I think it denies us the opportunity to put these things on the table and put them to bed definitively.”

Chandulal-Mackay was supported by councillors Duncan, Michael Law and Kate Joblin but the resolution was voted down by Mayor Andrew Tripe and councillors Ross Fallen, Philippa Baker-Hogan, Helen Craig, Charlie Anderson and Vinsen.

Councillors Glenda Brown, Peter Oskam and Charlotte Melser were not present at the time of the vote.

The result provoked an angry response from Duncan who asked why people would vote “against being informed”.

Vinsen said Chandulal-Mackay would have to sell his LWW T-shirt.