NSW's Perrottet Government has raised its 2.5% wage ceiling to 3% next financial year and up to 3.5% in 2023-24, in the face of incomes falling behind consumer price inflation and unions taking industrial action seeking to scrap the cap.
The FWC's minimum wage panel has given Prime Minister Anthony Albanese until Friday to lodge a submission to this year's annual wage review, but has asked him to keep it to 10 pages.
The UK Low Pay Commission has increased its wage floor by 6.6% to £9.50 ($16.80) as part of its plan to raise the minimum to two-thirds of median earnings by 2024.
Consumer prices are now rising at more than double the pace of private sector rates of pay excluding bonuses, which increased by 2.4% annually in the March quarter, unchanged from the December quarter, according to the ABS.
As wage stagnation and cost-of-living issues continue to feature in the federal election campaign, a new report shows Australia has experienced the greatest deceleration in real pay growth in the OECD since 2013, despite its relatively strong employment growth and low unemployment, suggesting that policy and institutional factors are the main culprit, rather than market forces.
NSW public school teachers will strike next Wednesday over "unmanageable" workloads and a "contemptuous" 2.04% salary cap proposed in the face of teacher shortages, with their union also warning that visits by State Government MPs will prompt walkouts.
A FWC full bench has agreed to inspect nursing homes when it starts hearing an aged care work value case later this month, while Labor has backpedalled on a plan to require facilities to roster registered nurses on 24/7 by July next year.
Striking NSW paramedics and hospital workers will on Thursday add to mounting pressure on the Perrottet Government to ditch its 2.5% cap on public sector pay rises, deliver a significant catch-up increase, update awards and open up productivity-based bargaining.
Victoria's Andrews Labor Government is calling for an increase of at least the CPI - currently 3.5% - to the federal minimum wage and all modern award rates on the basis that consumer price inflation movements mean anything less would be a pay cut.
A large employer organisation has called for the FWC to award minimum pay rises of 2.5% to 3% to help maintain living standards amid rising inflation, albeit with pay rises delayed for industries hardest hit by the pandemic.
