ACTU push for $30 minimum wage increase
by Leon Gettler
In a piece of news that will affect restaurants, eateries and hotels around Australia, the ACTU is seeking a $30-a-week increase in the minimum wage for 1.86 million low-paid workers from July 1.
The increase will take the minimum wage to $686.90 a week, or $18.08 a hour.
This is double the amount awarded by the Fair Work Commission last year and will inevitably be resisted by business and employer groups. They want any wage increase capped to between $7.90 and $12 a week.
It is also three times more than the retail industry says it can afford to pay.
The National Retail Association says it would support a more "modest" increase of no more than $10.70 per week, raising the minimum wage by 1.6 per cent to $667.60 per week.
The Australian Hotels Association wants any increase limited to 1.2 per cent or $7.90 per week
The industry might be heartened to remember that the Fair Work Commission rejected the ACTU's $27 a week claim last year. Instead, it awarded a "modest" $16 a week increase. That was equal to a rise of 42¢ an hour,
The ACTU however claims there has been an "alarming slide" in the living standards of low-paid workers since then.
In its submission, the ACTU says minimum wage levels had stayed "stubbornly low" at 43.8 per cent of average weekly full-time earnings. This was only fractionally up from 2015's record low of 43.4 per cent.
At the same time, it said productivity growth was outpacing wages while Australia's economic growth was way ahead of most OECD countries.
ACTU secretary David Oliver said the increase of that order was needed to stop the slide in the living standards of the low paid.
"A $30 a week rise for our lowest-paid workers is vital if we're to halt the alarming slide in living standards that is threatening the economic wellbeing of one in five Australians," Mr Oliver told The Australian Financial Review.
1st April 2016
