Call to Action

The Living Wage Movement Aotearoa has launched its Living Wage Schools Campaign. This campaign aims to ensure that all school cleaners, caretakers, canteen staff, and groundskeepers (CCCGS) are paid a living wage ($27.80 p/h from September 2024). The movement is calling on central government to provide new targeted living wage funding for state and integrated kura/schools enabling them to ensure both their contracted and directly employed CCCG kaimahi are valued and able to live a decent life. This will enable thousands of directly employed and contracted CCCGs to achieve parity with other kaimahi in the core public service and hospitals where the living wage has become the baseline.

Our strategy to secure these funds is simple: we aim to unite workers, parents, alumni, students, faith groups and the community to get local schools to sign onto our living wage pledge. The Living Wage pledge is the centrepiece of our campaign, which will involve asking school boards and tumuaki/principals to sign our pledge indicating their support for the living wage being paid to directly employed and contracted CCCG kaimahi, with the condition that the Government of the day provides the funds for the initial increase and the ongoing adjustments.