Workers became more loyal during the pandemic but retrenchments spiked smh.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from smh.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Recently, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) announced its decision to increase the minimum wage by 2.5 percent, alongside subsequent award wage rates. This has revived the debate on whether such policy is effective at helping workers at the bottom of the economic ladder. Unsurprisingly, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) thought it wasn t enough, having pushed for a 3.5 percent rise in the lead up to the decision, while employer groups such as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) argued for a lower increase than what the FWC delivered.
Australia has one of the highest minimum wages in the world. The FWC s decision increases the adult minimum wage from $19.84 to $20.33 per hour, or $772.60 per week for full-time workers (a 38-hour work week). Casual employees covered by the national minimum wage also receive at least a 25 percent casual loading on top (which brings the hourly wage up to $25.41). Moreover, taking into account penalty rates such as working on
Australia: Details of McCormick Foods industrial agreement reveal union sell-out
More than two months after the end of a six-week strike, by almost 100 manufacturing workers at a McCormick Foods plant in Melbourne, the details of the industrial agreement have been made public, via the Fair Work Commission.
The text exposes the fraud of the United Workers Union (UWU) boast of securing a significant win for the workers. Not a single improvement in conditions was won. A new night shift was agreed to, that potentially allows the company to slash overtime wage payments, along with an annual wage increase of just 3 percent.
Paid vaccine leave would help vulnerable workers and cost less than future lockdowns, according to a new report David Adams Luis Ascui/Pool/Getty Images
Paid vaccination leave would protect vulnerable workers against COVID-19 without making them lose income, a think tank states in a new report. The leave entitlement would be a simple means of removing a key barrier to getting vaccinated, The McKell Institute argues.
The federal government recently revealed $11 million in paid leave funding for aged care sector workers, for whom vaccination will be mandatory by mid-September.
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Paid vaccination leave would protect vulnerable workers against COVID-19 while costing businesses and governments less than future lockdowns, an Australian think tank says, after the federal government revealed a $11 million payment scheme targeted exclusively at aged care workers.
Australian union activists will protest in Sydney today in support of 220 Fijian aviation ground handlers who have been locked out of their workplace at Nadi International Airport by employer Air Terminal Services (ATS) since December 16, 2017.
The rally, organized by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), will call on the Fijian Government – a 51 percent shareholder in ATS – to take urgent action to end the lockout and allow workers to return to work.
ITF President Paddy Crumlin today urged the Fijian Government to act: “For over a month, 220 workers have been locked out, simply for defending basic workers’ rights.
“The Fijian Government has the power to resolve this dispute and, with the livelihoods of hundreds of workers and their families on the line, we need an urgent resolution.”