19 February, 2010

Living Wage activists took the Prime Minister to task last weekend while gathering signatures for the minimum wage referendum.

The activists were attending the Big Gay Out as part of their signature drive when they bumped into Prime Minister John Key and took him up on the issue of raising the minimum wage or at least signing their referendum petition.

Living Wage activist Joe Carolan says the Prime Minister's response was unexpected. "We asked him to sign the petition and he told us that increasing the minimum wage would cost jobs but that's proven to be untrue so then we asked him if he thought the minimum wage was fair and if he could survive on it."

"He told us that he couldn't do it easily," says Carolan, "but he said it like it was a joke."

"We really felt like he was laughing at the poor and our delegates, who earn just a few cents more than minimum wage, were furious." Carolan says.

Living Wage has put the incident here on youtube.

You can support the campaign for a referendum on the minimum wage by visiting http://www.unite.org.nz/livingwage, downloading a petition form and signing it off. You can join the Facebook page here.