Budget support for families does not provide excuse for business to grab more from low-paid workers
20 May, 2012 | Media Release Fair Work Australia must reject any push by employers to offset a decent rise in the minimum wage against measures in the Federal Budget to boost the real incomes of some low-income households.
The ACTU will tomorrow appear before the Minimum Wage Panel of Fair Work Australia in support of its claim for a $26 a week increase for Australia’s lowest-paid workers.
The new Secretary of the ACTU Dave Oliver said the $26 a week wage increase should be granted to low-paid workers to maintain a fair safety net and ensure they do not fall further behind average income earners.
The ACTU case would lift the National Minimum Wage to $615.30 a week. This would mean a 68c an hour increase from $15.51 an hour to $16.19 an hour. For other award-reliant workers above the benchmark tradesperson’s rate, unions will seek a 3.8% increase.
“The Panel needs to remember that its priority must be to provide and maintain a fair safety net for the one in six workers who are dependent on award wages,” Mr Oliver said.
“It must reject any applications by employer groups that would cut the real wages of the low-paid to maximise business profits.
“Last week we heard employer groups attempt to argue that measures in this year’s Budget to help low-income families meant Fair Work Australia should not provide any real wage increase for the low-paid.
“This is disgraceful. Unions totally reject the notion that when government gives with one hand, business should take with the other.
“The Federal Budget took positive steps towards a fairer and more equal Australia with an increase of the tax-free threshold to $18,000, the Schoolkids Bonus, an increase in the Family Tax Benefit, and a new Supplementary Allowance for income support recipients.
“These are deliberate policy measures aimed at increasing the disposable income of vulnerable and low-income Australians. But they are not relevant to this year’s Annual Wage Review. For a start, adult workers without children will not benefit from the changes to payments announced in the Budget.
“But more importantly, well-targeted government assistance to low-income households does not provide any excuse for business to attempt to deny hardworking Australians an increase to their real wages. It does not provide an excuse for businesses to grab more from workers to boost profits.
“None of the changes to transfer payments announced in the Budget in any way undermines our case that an increase of $26 per week for the lowest paid is appropriate, reasonable and affordable.”
Mr Oliver said that since 2005, minimum wages have fallen further and further behind overall wages growth, and the purchasing power of minimum wages was now less than half-a-decade ago.
The ACTU will also urge Fair Work Australia to “look through” the impact of the introduction of the carbon price package when making its decision, and ignore calls by some employer groups to grant a smaller increase because of the compensation associated with the package.