Nearly three million award workers should not be paid enough to buy lunch at work, according to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (ACCI) submission to the Annual Wage Review.
The ACCI submission, filed on Friday, criticised Fair Work Commission research into the minimum income that award-reliant workers need for “healthy living” – because it included a daily lunch allowance of $3.94 a day.
The bosses push to deny low-paid workers enough money to buy their own lunch, which contrasts with Coalition Leader Peter Dutton’s policy to spend at least $1.6 billion in taxpayers’ money each year on free lunches for bosses.
ACCI also criticised the research for including $22.10 a week towards saving for an overseas trip to visit family and rental costs of $465 a week – a low-paid benchmark set at about 60 per cent of Sydney median rental costs.
ACCI instead said rental amounts should be aligned with rents in lower-priced capital cities, suggesting that low-paid workers should not live in Sydney.
The rental benchmark of $465 is already well below the median rent in every other capital city in Australia.
The Fair Work Commission’s budget standards show that a single person working full-time on the current minimum wage of $915.90 falls about $236 a week short of the minimum income standards for a healthy living.
ACCI have put forward a pay increase of just 2.5 per cent for lower-paid and award-reliant workers, barely matching inflation. Other employer groups have put forward claims that would see minimum wage workers cop a real pay cut of nearly $800 a year.
According to analysis by the Australia Institute, if the Fair Work Commission had agreed to ACCI’s pay claims over the past decade, minimum wage workers would be $160 a week worse off now.
The ACTU is instead calling for a 4.5 per cent increase in minimum and award wages, to help low paid workers make progress towards a decent standard of living.
Quotes attributable to ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus:
“A major employer group does not think award workers deserve enough pay to buy lunch at work, save to visit family overseas or even live in Sydney. This is an outrageous insult to working people.
“Bosses are happy to get Peter Dutton’s $1.6 billion in free lunches paid for by the taxpayer, but think their own workers spending $3.94 a day on lunch is too much.
“Peter Dutton should stop hiding behind extreme employer views like this and instead match the Albanese Government’s commitment to supporting real wage rises for lower paid workers in this Annual Wage Review.”
