Exposing harsh realities of women workers on minimum wages

Thursday, 14 June 2018

Kiwi film director and documentary maker Kathleen Winter has been inspired to create Minimum from her time in low-wage paying jobs.

For the 65-year-old man who rented DVDs from the local store, the meeting was love at first sight.

For the young woman behind the counter, it was a tale of unrequited love that would take her six months to shake.

From the very first encounter he told her he loved her; that they had a spiritual connection.

He asked for her number. She said she didn't have a cellphone.

A few days later, he brought her one and entered his name and number.

She tried to tell him, politely, 'no'. He tried to hug and kiss her.

'I don't think I've ever been so clear in my life. I'm usually pretty jokey with people,' the woman, whose identity Stuff has agreed to protect, told director and documentary maker Kathleen Winter.

The man kept going back to the DVD shop. Eventually, after a few direct 'nos' he was content with just walking past, staring at her through the window.

She said, 'eventually, I guess he stopped, or I just stopped noticing him', Winter explains.

* Minimum wage hikes hits the price of coffee**

Her ex-colleague's story illustrates what it's like to be a young woman in a low-wage job, Winter says.

Her documentary series, Minimum, explores a wide spectrum of issues faced by Kiwi women in the workplace, including harassment, precarious work hours and poor health.

She says that 60.6 per cent of people working on the minimum wage in New Zealand are women.

Winter's inspiration for the project came from her own work in the retail and hospitality sectors.

She says it's not so much her own stories she wants to share, but of those around her.

She relays another story of a co-worker in a Wellington coffee shop who was being paid less than the minimum wage.

Minimum will include stories about jobs that are 'low-paid, really precarious or really under-appreciated', Winter says.

'It had gone up within the last six months and she was still 50c below it,' Winter says.

'It was only us telling her 'it's illegal' and pushing her to go to the manager that it was finally raised.

'It's an obvious legal requirement. Employers should know that it goes up every year.'

Winter says workers' experiences are often brushed under the carpet by themselves.

'The women that share them with each other don't realise they're important, that they're worth sharing.

'It was stuff that I couldn't believe and a lot of people in society don't get to hear those stories.'

The more situations Winter heard of, the more she realised that teacher aides, midwives, retail and hospitality workers - to name a few - all had shared experiences.

The Minimum project team: Dionne Ward, Michael Engelbrecht, Kathleen Winter, Jess Charlton and Cameron Langdon.

'I realised how big this project was and that it needed to be across all industries because those stories are shared by different people.'

The goal isn't to name and shame specific workplaces, she says, instead it's about challenging the norms and behaviours in New Zealand.

'I think we have a belief that people who earn less are actually worth less than other people,' Winter says.

'Low-wage work is often the most important work that keeps society afloat. But we have, for some reason, as a society, chosen not to value it.'

Winter believes New Zealand's working environment has a 'weird culture of self-sacrifice'.

'We'll do anything for our boss, our job and for our company. There's still this anti-union culture where if you're speaking up, it's sometimes frowned upon.'

So far, the Minimum documentary team has managed 14 on-camera interviews, but it's searching for additional stories.

Pākehā women feature prominently in the series, but Winter is looking for more ethnic representation.

'Pākehā woman, who are no longer in the job that they're talking about, are the people who are safest and most able to come forward and speak,' she explains.

'Māori and Pacific workers aren't able to appear on camera most times. Either because they're still in the workplace they're talking about, or because there's just more shame around their community seeing them speak up.'

She says those fearing reprisals are able to stay anonymous, if they choose to be interviewed for Minimum, and their stories can be re-enacted by an actress.

'In those cases we'd also be avoiding naming specific workplaces to try and avoid identification.'

Winter is also encouraging cleaners, bus drivers, fruit pickers and packers and aged-care workers to come forward with their accounts.

'The hardest thing is to convince women that their stories actually matter, especially when it's just stories about their day-to-day work life.

'But they're really valid because so much of society has no idea what a cleaner's day looks like, or what a kitchen hand's day looks like.'

Minimum is due for release in September, in time for the 125th Women's Suffrage anniversary, on The Wireless and Loading Docs.

Those interested in sharing their stories can visit minimumseries.com.

- Stuff now offers Auckland alerts, to keep you up to date with the news in our biggest city. Find out more here.