THE ACTU will seek a $26.60 a week wage rise next year for 1.6 million award workers in its annual minimum wage case.
THE ACTU will seek a $26.60 a week wage rise next year for 1.6 million award workers in its annual minimum wage case.
If successful, the claim will raise Australia’s legal minimum wage to $12.50 per hour (a 6 per cent increase). For full-time workers, the claim would boost the minimum wage from $448.40 per week to $475 per week, before tax.
The claim is the next step in the unions’ wages strategy adopted at ACTU Congress in August, which set a target to progressively increase the Federal Minimum Wage to $14.50 an hour or $550 a week.
While the ACTU said the claim was an opportunity to help reverse the growing inequality of incomes in Australian society, employer groups expressed their staunch opposition.
Given the uncertain domestic and international economic climate, Australian Industry Group chief executive Bob Herbert said the claim was “unrealistic and excessive”.
He said the group would only support a “moderate increase”, which struck a balance between maintaining a strong economy and a safety net of fair minimum wages.
Peter Hendy, chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the claim was “excessive and irresponsible”.
“The ink is not even dry on record wage increases imposed on employers in 2002 and 2003,” he said.
Hendy said the claim is not targeted at the low paid, but rather would increase wages of middle income earners, taking arbitrated award rates to $1,021.70 per week (more than $53,000 per year).
“This would be the first time the Australian Industrial Relations Commission is setting wages for people earning more than $1,000 per week,” he said.
“That’s a distortion of an industrial system intended to provide an award safety net for the lower paid only.”
However the ACTU said that in order to address the crisis of low pay in Australia, substantial increases were needed in the incomes of low paid workers.
“More than half of award workers earn less than $15 per hour. Many cannot afford basic household expenses. It is no surprise that Australians are being forced into record levels of household and credit card debt,” said ACTU secretary Greg Combet.
He said most award workers are women in part-time and casual jobs in the hospitality, retail, health, childcare and community sectors, and deserved a decent pay rise next year.
He also said the ACTU’s claim was economically responsible and would have a negligible impact on employment levels. “The claim is costed to add 0.1 per cent to economy-wide earnings and 0.08 per cent to inflation.”
The Australian Industrial Relations Commission will hear the wage case next year.
