2023-01-08
Australia’s lowest paid and most vulnerable workers are doing it tough, with increasing cost of living and insecure jobs. The Greens Jobs Plan ‒ Better Rights, More Pay and Secure Jobs ‒ seeks to address urgent issues facing Australian workers.
By Juanita Doorey, Fremantle-Tangney Greens Regional Group and member of the Greens Union Working Group
Wages have stagnated in Australia during the past 10 years and the past 18 months has seen deep cuts in real wages. We’ve all seen the media stories about impacts of insecure employment, low wages, cost of living increases and lack of rentals. People are living in caravans, in cars or couch surfing, while trying to hold down a job.
In Australia, 2.3 million workers (around 1 in 4) are paid the minimum wage and nearly two-thirds are women. (1) In July 2022 the national minimum wage increased from $20.33 to $21.38 per hour (2) ‒ however, this $1.05 per hour increase hardly scratched the surface in meeting cost of living increases and rising inflation. In WA, public sector workers campaigned hard to achieve a 3% wage increase and nurses and midwives, while still calling for a 5% wage increase, have been offered a lesser increase by the WA government, despite its $5.7 billion budget surplus! (3)
Insecure employment is another huge issue in Australia, including casuals, labour hire and gig economy workers. According to recent ABS figures, 2.7 million workers are casual, (4) with many working in hospitality and service industries, such as aged care. The Fair Work Commission definition of ‘casual employee’ underscores its insecure nature ‒ ‘A person is a casual employee if they accept an offer for a job from an employer knowing that there is no firm advance commitment to ongoing work with an agreed pattern of work.’(5) During the pandemic, people in insecure jobs lost employment eight times more quickly than those in permanent jobs.(6) Also, casual workers had no access to paid sick leave through their employer. Meanwhile, workers in the ‘gig economy’, often working long hours for very low income, may be classified as ‘independent contractors’, rather than as employees.
A very recent poll conducted by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) gives a sobering picture of how things are for many. (7) Of the 3000 Australians polled:
- 56% had cut back on essential items;
- 24% had skipped meals due to the current cost of living crisis;
- 21% had sold assets to keep up with rising costs; and,
- 14% had been forced to move or to look for more affordable housing.
However, the picture for corporate Australia looks very different. Company profits have surged while wages flatlined. Mining, the finance sector and the banks all recorded significant profits in 2022, while Qantas forecast profits of between $1.35 and $1.45 billion, in the midst of soaring flight costs, lost luggage and flight delays.(8) And perhaps worst of all, the Albanese Government remains committed to Stage 3 tax cuts for the super wealthy.
Better Rights, More Pay and Secure Jobs – Greens Jobs Platform (6)
The Greens Jobs Plan, part of the 2022 Federal Election campaign, addresses many of the urgent issues facing Australian workers:
1. More Secure Jobs: End the insecure work crisis so working people have a secure job they can rely on and give casual and contract workers access to protections and entitlements.
2. Better Rights for Workers: Protect the rights of workers and unions and give workers more bargaining power to increase wages and improve conditions.
3. Higher wages: Establish a new minimum wage at 60% of the median wage and close the gender pay gap by guaranteeing annual award wage increases of CPI + 0.5% in women-dominated industries.
4. Workplaces that work for women: Boost paid parental leave and increase women’s workforce participation through free childcare and flexible work arrangements. Close the gender pay gap by increasing wages, valuing care work, and improving pay transparency ‒ the gender pay gap is currently 22.8%, with women, on average, earning $26,596 less than men annually.
5. Rebuilding the arts, entertainment and creative industries: These industries were some of the hardest hit by the pandemic. Many artists and crews lost their entire income and were excluded from the Job Keeper program. A $1 billion Live Performance Fund to inject money into the sector and Covid insurance are also in the plan.
6. Establish a Future of Work Commission: The pandemic changed the way many people work, such as working remotely. While remote work has offered some employees greater flexibility, it is open to exploitation. The pandemic also highlighted the vulnerable situation of casual workers. A Future of Work Commission would examine these issues and provide advice to government, business, unions and communities.
The Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill – December 2022:
The Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill, which passed Federal Parliament in December 2022, is a step in the right direction – giving working people the means to effectively bargain for wage increases, to keep up with the cost of living. The Greens supported this legislation, including multi-employer bargaining, while successfully adding important protections for some of Australia’s lowest paid workers, including: (9)
- The enforceable right to (unpaid) parental leave;
- Securing 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave (previously 5 days of unpaid leave); and,
- Retaining the Better Off Overall Test (BOOT).
The BOOT, administered by the Fair Work Commission, requires a worker to be ‘better off overall’ under a new enterprise agreement, rather than their employment being covered under a modern award and National Employment Standards. The federal government’s original bill removed protections under the BOOT and the Greens successfully negotiated to have these safeguards retained.
What next in 2023?
The Greens have long championed environmental and social justice issues and climate change is one of the most urgent challenges facing Australia. Campaigns for a Net Zero Perth and to address housing and homelessness are crucial.
However, working people in WA and Australia-wide also need a liveable wage, secure employment and workplace protections. Social and Economic Equity is part of GWA’s Four Pillars and as Greens we must do whatever we can to address the deepening structural inequalities in the community.
Our Greens’ representatives in federal parliament are strong advocates for working people, with Adam Bandt holding the Greens’ portfolio for Workplace Relations, Senator Barbara Pocock Greens’ portfolios for Employment and the Public Sector and Nick McKim portfolios for Economic Justice and Treasury. Newly elected Queensland Greens MPs, Stephen Bates and Max Chandler-Mather, both have strong union backgrounds. In WA, Brad Pettitt, our sole Greens MLC, has supported public sector workers and nurses and midwives in their campaigns for better wages and former Greens MLCs made significant contributions to WA’s new Work, Health and Safety Act.
It has also been heartening to see GWA’s Unions Working Group (UWG) rekindled and active! The UWG aims to assist and encourage Greens (WA) members to join their relevant unions and to build capacity of Greens’ members to organise within their workplaces. This working group also aims to promote Greens’ industrial relations and workplace policies and to encourage unionists and workers from outside the Greens to learn more about these. It also provides a support network for Greens members working as union officials or who are union delegates.
Throughout 2022 Greens members have been active in the WA public sector wages campaign and a contingent took part in the 10,000 strong rally outside State Parliament in August. 2023 is also shaping up to be a busy year for the UWG, with union-related advocacy, union delegate training and other events planned. The 2023 The May Day rally and march also promises to be a huge event this year, having been cancelled due to Covid two years running. It’s so important that as Greens we do whatever we can to positively shape workplace relations in this state and to advocate for better wages and workplace protections for the most vulnerable workers. There is a lot to be done!
Sources:
(1) https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/03/31/why-its-time-for-a-5-increase-to-the-minimum-wage/
(4) https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/slower-recovery-casual-work-continues-2022
(5) https://www.fairwork.gov.au/starting-employment/types-of-employees/casual-employees
(6) https://greens.org.au/platform/jobs
Header photo: Public sector workers rally at Parliament House, August 2022. Credit: ABC, 17 August 2022
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of The Greens WA]