The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi has launched a major election campaign targeting Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and the economic record of the National-led Government.
The campaign, titled Don’t risk 6 years of Luxon, will run across multiple platforms through to the election and feature working people describing their experiences with employment, wages and the cost of living.
NZCTU President Sandra Grey says the union movement wants voters to consider what another three years of a National-led coalition could mean for working households. The campaign argues workers have gone backwards financially during the current term.
NZCTU says there are now 48,000 more unemployed people than when the Government took office, while the number unemployed for six months or longer has increased by 130 percent. It also says the minimum wage has fallen 4 percent in real terms since 2023, which it calculates leaves a full-time minimum-wage worker $2,076 a year behind where they would have been had the wage kept pace with inflation.
The campaign also points to increases in the cost of household energy, bread, milk and meat, and says hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders continue to experience material hardship.
The figures and characterisation of the Government are being advanced by NZCTU as part of its election campaign. The union organisation is explicitly campaigning for a change of government.
The campaign is also encouraging people to enrol or update their details ahead of the election, with NZCTU planning to release a separate report examining the cost of living through the experiences of workers.
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