‘Low-paid work provides dignity’: MPs urged to scrap $19.49 minimum wage, unions slam ‘appalling’ push
News.com  August 20 2019.
The $19.49 an hour minimum wage should be scrapped so more young people can do low-paid work — because it “provides dignity”, MPs have been told.


Low-paid work “provides dignity” and is an “important first rung of the career ladder”, according to a document distributed to MPs calling for the minimum wage to be scrapped.

The parliamentary research brief distributed by conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) argues Australia’s minimum wage of $19.49 an hour is the highest in the developed world and “undermines work opportunity and job creation” by “removing the entry rung” for young and low-skilled workers.   :(

“Low-paid work equips workers with important experience, builds transferable skills, demonstrates a willingness to work and provides references and contacts for future work opportunities,” the paper says. “It also functions as a starting point for young people to experience the dignity of work that provides meaning and direction and fosters personal responsibility and independence.”

Using data from government submissions to the Fair Work Commission’s Annual Wage Review, IPA research fellow Kurt Wallace calculated nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers moved to higher-paid work within two years and just 3 per cent remained in low-paid work after five years.

“Contrary to suggestions that low-paid work is a ‘dead-end job’, these jobs have high upward income mobility,” Mr Wallace said in a statement. “Over half of low-paid Australian workers move to higher-paid work within a year, 64 per cent move to higher-paid work within two years and 75 per cent move to higher-paid work within five years.”

Mr Wallace added, “Australia’s stringent labour regulation significantly raises the cost of employment, making it difficult for those who lack experience to find work. The superannuation system and leave entitlements alone increase the minimum wage to $25.34 per hour worked.”

The World Economic Forum ranks Australia the 105th least flexible labour market out of 140 countries. The IPA argues the minimum wage is a large reason 38 per cent of 15 to 19-year-olds are either unemployed or underemployed and an estimated 250,000 Australians aged 15 to 24 are not engaged in work, study, or caring for children.


ACTU secretary Sally McManus has slammed a move to abolish the minimum wage.

“All work provides dignity, skills and financial independence,” Mr Wallace said. “Low-paid work is an important rung toward higher-paid work and career success. Australia’s high minimum wage and restrictive labour regulation undermines the ability of young people to enter the workforce and experience the dignity of work.”



An IPA spokesman added the think tank did “not believe there should be a minimum wage”. “It is not a policy which is well targeted at alleviating poverty — most who are on the minimum wage are not poor,” he said. “And it prevents the lowest skilled from getting a job. Instead governments should explore alternatives such as earned income tax credits.”

Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus slammed the research. “The proposal by the extreme big business advocates at the IPA to abolish the minimum wage is appalling, dangerous, but predictable,” she said in a statement.

“This group believes that workers should have no rights or protections and our society should be run solely according to the wishes of big business. At the same time, former and current IPA members who are Liberal MPs are also pushing for the removal of unfair dismissal protections.”

Ms McManus said Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter should “publicly reject any suggestion that minimum wages or unfair dismissal protections should be abolished and stand up for working people”.

“Should they not do this, it will be clear that they are allowing extreme groups like the IPA to drive their agenda,” she said. “Ideas like this are fundamentally unfair and would drive our country into recession. The only thing keeping wage increases in line with inflation are our minimum wages system and the pay rises won by unions.”

More than two million Australians got a pay rise at the start of last month after the Fair Work Commission’s 3 per cent increase to the minimum wage took effect. Unions were pushing for a 6 per cent increase at the Annual Wage Review in May, while business groups wanted 2 per cent.

Mr McManus said the IPA was using the Morrison Government’s shock election victory as an “opportunity to once again push their extreme agenda”.   :(

“They have a list of demands which over six years the Coalition government has been ticking off, but they’re not done,” she said. “The Morrison Government has given them this soapbox with the announcement of a review of workers’ rights. 

crofto   :(

I chose to stay in a minimum wage job because it was enough money , if it lowers then it’s not enough , I put all of myself into this job I can’t get another job now, won’t be fair to make my pay lower
Eamonn

But crofto, they don't care.   :(
They want you ( and me, and every other sod on minimum wage) to work two, or three jobs, like the working poor do in the United States.
And Australia's standards of living can go down to the level of Bangladesh.
Afterall, your impinging the right of the rich to buy another yacht, didn't you know?

The union propaganda parrot Blackday squawks hysterically that under the LIMA Agreement signed by the useless Whitlam Australia must transfer ALL its industry to poorer nations and to force Australian industry to close down then INCREASE WAGES to send them BROKE!!!!

Is this treason or what ?

We need to make politician salary the same as minimum wage - see what happens then .... they're only servants of the people after all - why should they get any more?

.. and no penalty rates for late hour work or weekends, either.....

But pollies reckon they are the cream of the crop. The Fat Cats demand their saucer of milk.

Eamonn   :(

Well, that didn't take long.
The IPA, the policymaker for the Liberals, has crawled out and now are attacking the minimum wage.
In effect, to emulate the working system of the United States.
Curious...reckon you'll  be loving the "-dignity, skills and financial independence" on $5 an hour?
Didn't hear anything about his before the election, did you?
It's just great, isn't it...wages haven't gone up in years, working people's unions have been gutted, wages theft is rampant, wealth inequality is at the worst levels since before the Great Depression...and they come out with this little gem.   


Shane   :(

Abolishing the minimum wage will result in a race to the bottom which will punish the most vulnerable members of our society and exasperate the wealth gap between the rich and the poor.

This is a radical and dangerous idea with no place in a country which prides itself in the idea fair go. What do we stand for after all? The fairness of our system is what makes Australia such a great place to live.

Fairly soon I predict we will see UBI and a complete deregulation of the labor market

Now the union propaganda parrot Blackday tries to apologize for his mistake.

Don't know what mistake you are talking about?.   :( 

The surest way to crash the economy into depression is to pull the rug out from underneath it. That's what scrapping the minimum wage will do. It will suck so much money out of the economy that no amount of "quantitative easing" will fix it.

The economy is built like a pyramid and the minimum wage is the base of that pyramid. Reduce the size of that base, what happens?

Start with property prices. All those landlords who rely on the minimum wage to collect their rents will suddenly find people moving out, with nobody taking their places. The landlords won't be able to fill those properties unless they lower the rents by the same amount that wages were reduced by. 60%? 80%? Those $350 a week properties will no longer be lettable unless rents were reduced to below $100 a week.

Everyone else will feel the effects too. House prices will collapse. Wages for workers will drop. And those fat cats on $200,000 or more a year will feel the pain too. Nobody would be spared. Not least the government, who would find out at the next election what a double-digit swing can do to a 2-seat majority.

juliar wrote on Aug 23^rd, 2019 at 12:21pm:

But pollies reckon they are the cream of the crop. The Fat Cats demand their saucer of milk.

This is why the Libs are up to their necks in corruption.

aquascoot wrote on Aug 23^rd, 2019 at 12:44pm:

Fairly soon I predict we will see UBI and a complete deregulation of the labor market

Yes- towards a slave market.

Lee looking forward to turning his current wage thieving to legally abiding slavery.  Juliar laughing with glee as Coalition gives businesses what they want (and not need).  Whatever.

Quote:

The parliamentary research brief distributed by conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) argues Australia’s minimum wage of $19.49 an hour is the highest in the developed world and “undermines work opportunity and job creation” by “removing the entry rung” for young and low-skilled workers.

Youth Wage:

Age      % of national minimum wage      Minimum hourly rate
19                       82.5%                                  $13.92

20                       97.7%                                  $16.48

The conservatives do not even lie well.

Young workers are paid at $13.92 an hour and not the minimum wage of $19.49.

Yes the Liberals are in fact low life scum bags, no way to get past this part of their nature.