Employers have been exploiting workers in this fashion for ever...

CTU says employers hiring contractors to exploit loophole in law which allows less than minimum wage to be paid. They have been doing it for years and nine years of a Labour-led government didn't change it - do you really believe National will do anything about it? Yeah right!

The Council of Trade Unions claims employers are using contracting arrangements to get around paying the statutory minimum wage rates to people doing work such as leaflet delivery.

The CTU has contributed to the redrafting of a bill that will be debated in Parliament today aimed at closing the loophole.

Secretary Peter Conway says the downturn in the labour market has seen an increase in subcontracting work.

"The minimum wage is a really important protection and this loophole allows people to be employed as contractors and their piece rate does not add up to effectively the minimum wage. So we'd like to see that loophole closed."

Mr Conway says some businesses are evading the law concerning minimum wages by farming out low-skilled work to individual contractors who have little or no choice about work available to them.



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