A Living Wage for Aucklanders - Learning from London

A Living Wage for Aucklanders - Learning from London

A ‘living wage’ is defined as the wage necessary to provide an employee with a sufficient income to ensure an adequate standard of living and the ability to fully participate in society. It is independently calculated and updated annually, and nearly 80 businesses around New Zealand are now accredited as Living Wage Employers. 

So how does an organisation or business make the transition and start phasing in a living wage? How is the wage calculated? And what are the benefits once it is established?

Auckland Conversations is proud to host economist and author Alan Freeman. As Principal Economost for the Greater London Authority, Freeman established the first Living Wage Unit in the UK in 2001. London’s model was so successful that the campaign subsequently grew into a national movement with local campaigns across the UK. Auckland has been inspired by the London experience, and now we have the chance to learn from it.

This event is co-hosted by The Living Wage Movement Aotearoa New Zealand, which was founded in 2012 on the commitment to raise the wages of the working poor. Their campaign aims to secure a living wage as a way to reduce growing inequality and poverty in New Zealand.

Alan Freeman

Former Principal Economist, Greater London Authority

Alan Freeman was principal economist of the Living Wage unit at the Greater London Authority's Economic Analysis Unit from 2001 to 2011. Alan is now a retired but research-active cultural economist. He currently writes and advises on cultural policy, is visiting fellow at the Department of City Planning, University of Manitoba, research fellow at Queensland University of Technology, and visiting professor at London Metropolitan University. He has published 98 articles on economics and politics and co-edited four books.

He is co-editor, with Radhika Desai, of two book series: 'Geopolitical Economy' at Manchester University Press, and of 'the Future of World Capitalism', with Pluto Books. He is a vice-chair of the World Association for Political Economy. He is one of the 'small club' of economists who predicted the crash of 2008, and in 2008 also predicted that the economic crisis would not leave the industrialised countries until and unless these countries undertook public investment on the scale associated with US government spending during World War II (about 55% of GDP). His Higher Education qualifications are in Mathematics, Computing, and Economics His professional career includes 15 years as a programmer, 13 as a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Greenwich, and 10 years as a civil servant at the GLA.

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