Unions will be rallying in the Octagon, Dunedin, at 12 noon today Saturday 1 May in support of workers out of work.

The rally is held on May Day, 1 May, the international day for workers.

Unions Otago convenor Andrew Tait says Unions Otago is calling for improvements to benefit levels for unemployed workers.

He says last year the Salvation Army calculated that benefits in real terms were worth 25% less than they were in 1991, following the then National Government’s benefit cuts.

Successive governments have failed to set benefits at a liveable level, he says.

Mr Tait says the $25 per week increase the Labour Government implemented last year in the wake of COVID-19 has barely registered.

He says there needs to be a radical overhaul of the welfare system, with benefit levels restored to an amount that lets recipients continue to be active participants in society, rather than social outcasts.

The Government need to implement all the recommendations of its Welfare Expert Advisory Group, he says.

In 1991 then National Government finance minister Ruth Richardson delivered the so-called 'Mother of All Budgets', slashing benefit rates and abolishing the universal family benefit.

In conjunction with the Employment Contracts Act which radically deregulated the 'labour market', this amounted to a full frontal attack on the working class, in a calculated strategy which lowered wages and living standards.

Unions Otago is the local affiliates of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi.

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