Secure Work
Job insecurity is rife. Without a secure job, it can be hard to plan your life, pay the bills, or get a home.
During the pandemic, people in insecure jobs lost work eight times faster than those in permanent jobs.
The Greens plan include:
- End the insecure work crisis so working people have a secure job they can rely on
- Give casual and contract workers access to protections and entitlements to protect rights of all workers.
Workplace Rights
Billionaires and big corporations continue to increase their profits as working people experienced the slowest sustained wage growth since the Great Depression and our labour laws continue to breach international law.
Right now, big corporations have too much power.
The Greens plan includes:
- Ensure labour laws reduce inequality in society
- Ensure workers are paid, and treated, equally for the same kind of work
- Protect the rights of workers and unions
- End the insecure work crisis
- Give workers more bargaining power to increase wages and improve conditions
- Stop migration laws and free trade deals undercutting local labour laws
- Ensure the composition of the workforce reflects the population
- Stop government attacks on working people and their unions
- Establish an independent workplace commission to enforce labour laws
Higher Wages
While billionaires and big corporations continue to make super profits, working people are experiencing stagnant wage growth.
The government has no plan to increase wages.
The Greens plan includes:
- Establishing a new minimum wage at 60% of the median wage.
- Closing the gender pay gap by guaranteeing annual award wage increases of CPI + 0.5% in women-dominated industries, including education, nursing, cleaning and childcare.
Workplaces That Work For Women
Women disproportionately experience sexism, discrimination and harassment at work. Women’s jobs are more insecure, with less pay and fewer rights.
The gender pay gap in Australia is 13.8%, with men working full time taking home, on average, $25,800 more than women working full time each year.
The Greens plan includes:
- Boosting paid parental leave
- Increasing women’s workforce participation through free childcare and flexible work arrangements
- Closing the gender pay gap by increasing wages, valuing care work, improving pay transparency, and penalising employers who don’t act to reduce the pay gap
- Implementing all recommendations in the Respect@Work and Set the Standard reports, including a positive duty on employers to make their workplace safe
- Implementing public sector workforce strategies to boost employment of women, First Nations and CALD people, and people with a disability
- Supporting women-led businesses through low interest loans and procurement targets
Arts, entertainment and creative sectors
The arts, entertainment and creative industries have been some of the hardest hit by the COVID-19 crisis. Overnight, many artists and crews lost their entire income.
This industry is worth $112 billion a year to the Australian economy and employs around 600,000 people.
Many of those in the arts, entertainment and creative sectors have found themselves excluded from the Government’s JobKeeper program
The Greens plan includes:
- Providing additional Covid recovery funding through the RISE fund
- Establishing a $1 billion Live Performance Fund to inject money into Australia’s festival, music and live performance sector
- Supporting the recovery of the arts industry with additional Covid recovery funding and pandemic insurance for live events
- Growing Australia's local screen industry with a $1 billion 'Australian Stories Fund'
- Regulating global streaming giants and require services to invest 20% of money earned from Australian subscribers to be spent on Australian content.
- Establishing multi-disciplinary Creativity Commission with $10 million a year fund.
- Providing pandemic insurance for live events
- Legislating a minimum performance fee to provide stability for live performers
- Investing in arts education with the establishment of a new arts school
- Pilot Artists Wage program to help 10,000 Australian artists have an amazing year of creativity
The Future Of Work
The COVID pandemic has changed the way we work, accelerating many significant transformations that were already underway. But current low unemployment figures mask the enormous problems of underemployment and wage stagnation, and while remote work has offered greater flexibility and a work-life balance it can also lead to increased exploitation.
Research shows that remote working is here to stay with more than 40% of working people in Australia still regularly working from home.
The Greens plan includes:
- Establish A Future of Work Commission to examine these issues and provide advice to government, business, unions and communities on how to address the threats and problems of the transformation of work and make the most of the opportunities.
Together, we’re powerful.
We have a plan to reduce the cost of living, make housing more affordable, tackle the climate crisis, and make sure everyone is looked after.
We'll take on the big corporations, stop them ripping you off, and and tax them to fund the things that everyone needs. The Greens are fighting for you.