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ONE MILLION LOW PAID WORKERS FACE ANOTHER REAL WAGE CUT UNDER GOVT IR LAWS
More than one million workers reliant on minimum award wages are facing another real wage cut under the Howard Government's new pay setting arrangements according to a media report in today's Financial Review newspaper.
The prospect of another real pay cut comes on the back of the Fair Pay Commission's previous decision which also delivered an average real pay cut of about 1% for workers reliant on minimum award wages.
The ACTU is outraged that company profits continue to be at record levels with CEOs of big business receiving exhorbitant bonuses while the living standards of more than a million low paid working Australians are going backwards.
ACTU President Sharan Burrow said:
"This is what the Howard Government's IR laws were designed to do and this is what they are delivering - slowly but surely the IR laws are bringing down the wages and conditions of ordinary workers and reducing the living standards of working families.
Last year's Fair Pay Commission decision on minimum award wages failed to increase wages above the cost of inflation for most workers reliant on the award safety net.
These same workers are now faced with another cut in the real value of their take home pay.
It is wrong for the Government to suggest that the measly tax cuts it provided in the May Budget are adequate compensation for the rise in petrol prices, housing costs, childcare fees and other cost of living increases affecting working families.
Low paid workers will get as little as $4.60 a week from 1 July as a result of the Howard Govt's unfair tax cuts while high income earners get three times this amount and even more next year," said Ms Burrow.
ACTU Media
1 May 2007
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