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Executive salaries go up 28% while wages for award workers fall under Work Choices
New figures released today by the Australian Financial Review confirm the gap between high income earners and average workers is getting bigger under the Howard Government’s WorkChoices says the ACTU.
Salary packages for executives have jumped by 28% to an average of more than $2.5 million a year.
This is a massive average pay rise of $570,000 for the year, or around $11,000 a week.
At the same time that CEOs are getting outrageous pay increases, hard working Australians have experienced a fall in their real wages under Work Choices says the ACTU.
ACTU President Sharan Burrow said:
“This is another clear sign that Work Choices is taking Australia down the United States path of a small number of executives earning obscene amounts while large numbers of workers are stuck on low wages.
“Last week the head of the Howard Government’s wage setting body, Professor Ian Harper confirmed that more than a million award workers have had a real pay cut of up to $800 a year under Work Choices.
“This week we find that CEOs are getting paid more in a week than most workers get in a year.
“Increases in interest rates, petrol prices, food and other household basics along with the downward pressure on wages from WorkChoices mean more and more working families are struggling to keep their heads above water.
“John Howard and Peter Costello keep telling us that Australia’s economy is doing well but under Work Choices working families are not seeing the benefits of this prosperity.
“The situation for average working Australians will get even worse if the Liberals are re-elected and go ahead with their plan to push an extra 1.5 million workers onto wage-cutting AWAs under Work Choices,” said ACTU President Sharan Burrow.
Education workers and unions are today holding activities in marginal Coalition seats across Australia to highlight concerns that a re-elected Howard-Costello Govt will go further with WorkChoices and tie federal funding and incentives to the introduction of AWAs in the education and childcare sectors.
Australia’s 450,000 childcare workers, school teachers, TAFE and university staff will be the next target for AWA individual contracts if the Howard Govt is re-elected, say unions.
ACTU Media Release
13 November 2007
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