We talk about equality so very much, yet nothing is ever really done when it comes to crunch time. When the low-paid workers got the $17 pay rise today, the business and industry representative was out saying some industries should be exempted, and that the rise was too much and put too much of a burden on business interests.

Executive pay and bonuses continue to rise, not to mention the 'expenditures' allowances given to those in top posts. When will the conversation about equality actually equate to some change in the trend towards a widening gap? Why is it so hard to argue that instead of sacking workers or downgrading working environments, the top earners should instead expect 45c less per hour in their expected pay rise?

If a company's percentage cost paid in wages must fall or remain steady each year compared to its profits, why must the lowest paid take the hit in their pay growth and not those at the top? Surely a measly 17 dollars a week is peanuts for those who earn over 100,000 a year? Surely they can give that up on their next wage increase.

Yet time and again, we are given two choices: accept lower pay rises for those who are most vulnerable, or deal with staff cuts that affect the same. Why are we trying to push people into a choice between slavery or unemployment? A wage that guarantees a person only the minimums of survival is not a wage, it's slavery. Slaves used to get housing, food, clothes for their work. Now the workers get to forego beatings, and keep working for their other privileges.

Why do we talk about it so much if the bottom line never changes? Executive salary increases are seen as a natural thing in the name of 'attracting' talent, yet even after the biggest meltdown of the financial sector, we're seeing pay levels return and exceed those pre-GFC. When will talk go beyond just talk? What exactly are the arguments for keeping top-level pay increases in lieu of the same for those lower down?

Surely a 2.9% increase on the highest wages and a 4% increase in the lowest would be less expensive than if it were the other way around.

"Surely a 2.9% increase on the highest wages and a 4% increase in the lowest would be less expensive than if it were the other way around. "

Although I see that you are trying to be pure at heart, it actually doesnt mathematically work like that.

Take a large company like Coles with over 100,000 employees.  Lets say for arguments sake they have the equivelant of 50,000 full time employees on the minimum wage of $551.

The $17.10 a week equals 3.1%.

Say we give them the extra 0.9% you talk of (Taking them to 4%), which would have meant an additional $4.96 a week.  Chicken feed, but multipled by 50,000 employees x 52 weeks the additional cost is $12,896,000.

The CEO of Coles last year including bonuses got $15,100,000.

Now if he only got a 2% pay rise, 2% of 15,100,000 is only $302,000.  Well short of the extra $12,896,000 you speak of.

I know you mean well, but mathematically it just doesnt add up. 

I merely pointing out that in large corporations, $5 a week can really add up, and its not that simple as saying the CEO could fund it instead of a pay rise, because as Ive illistrated, forgoing the pay rise wouldnt pay for it.

The current system is not designed for equality.
It would be like trying to drive a diesel car on unleaded.

Verge wrote on Jun 1^st, 2012 at 4:12pm:

I prefer a ratio that means a fat cat can not earn a certain percent more then their lowest paid employee