Small business owners should use the windfall from last week’s budget to boost the wage of Australia’s lowest-paid workers, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has said.
The government’s $5bn small business package was the centrepiece of the budget, and included tax cuts and instant deductions for new purchases worth less than $20,000.
ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said the extra cash should be used to raise the minimum wage, as the tax cut alone was not enough to hire new staff.
“Small business owners now have no excuse to oppose an increase to the wages of their employees,” Oliver said. “Failure to lift wages will result in creating an underclass of working poor in Australia and no one wants that.”
Oliver said the ACTU-backed increase would take the minimum wage from $16.87 an hour to $17.58 an hour.
“There are already signs that Australia is developing a working poor, with financial stress, deprivation and poverty on the rise among low-paid workers,” he said. “A $27 per week pay rise for the 1.86 million Australian workers on minimum wages will provide a $3.1bn economic stimulus.”
Just under 19% of the Australian workforce earns the national or award minimum wage.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has urged the Fair Work Commission to take a “cautious and constrained approach” to raising the minimum wage, citing a softening labour market and high unemployment.
It wants a weekly increase of $5.70, a below-inflation increase of 0.89%, which would amount to a pay cut in real terms.
