During the 2007 election campaign, voters were led to believe via a massive scare campaign that Labor would provide wage protection.

Hang on tight

The cruel irony is that whilst the Howard Government achieved real wage increases of over 19%, Labor’s new laws are actually leading to wage decreases.

What is most galling is the temerity of the Deputy Prime Minister when on 19th March 2008 she was asked by Kieran Gilbert on PM Agenda:

“The opposition has asked you to guarantee that no worker will be worse off, that no worker would be worse off under your system. Are you able to give that guarantee or is that too difficult?”

Her response was: “I am certainly able to guarantee that under the bill that passed the parliament today, Labor’s new laws, workers will not be disadvantaged by Labor’s new laws they will be substantially better off.”

The interviewer then asked: “So no group of workers will be worse off?

She responded: “Our bill today is about making people better off, and it will, and I can give the guarantee that no worker, from the bill we have passed today into Australian law, will be worse off.”
It is my melancholy duty to inform the Deputy Prime Minister that her guarantee is not worth the airwaves that broadcast it.

Whilst the Coalition has enunciated numerous examples of workers worse off, such as Aged Care workers, $300 a week worse off (Question Time 8th Feb 10) in the electorate of Fadden in the Gold Coast I have been inundated with calls from a range of workers who are meter readers with the Spotless Group.

It turns out that a Level 3 Senior Meter Reader on the ‘Meter Reading Employees Award – State 2005’ receives a weekly rate of pay of $694.20, plus a laundry allowance of $1.35 a week and an additional all purpose allowance of $21.43 a week.

All together, after a 38 hour working week the Senior Meter Reader received a gross income of $716.98.

That’s less than $37,500 a year before tax, not a great deal of money and certainly challenging to raise a family of a few children.  When your income is at this level, any reduction can be the difference between moving forward and seriously going backwards.

It turns out that this Senior Meter Reader works for Spotless P&F Pty Ltd on contract to Energex. Under the Government’s award modernisation scheme, he is now classed as an ‘Administrative – Grade 1’ under the new Electrical Power Industry Award 2010.

This position has a weekly wage of $563, with no allowances. He is worse off by $153.98 per week, or $8006.96 a year.

An email that was sent from Spotless to a range of Energex executives says: “Guys, we need to make sure all staff are aware that, due to the implementation of the modern award as of 1 January, the majority of employees have incurred a reduction in their take-home pay. Please reiterate these changes verbally to all employees. The loss of allowance payments in regard to laundry allowance, 27 cents a day, and an all purpose allowance, $48.95, are the contributing factors. …….… Please impress upon employees that Spotless did not implement this modern award. This is a government issue.”

Hollow words when you’re facing a pay reduction of $153.98 a week. What is more vexing is that the Government knew this would occur, as the new award has a contingency if the new award wage is less than the old award.

Point A.3.5 in the new award has a table that says in the 1st year any reduction in pay between the old and new award is restricted to no more than 20%, rising by 20% each year.

Therefore on 1 July 2010 the loss of pay (excluding allowances) can only be 20% of the total pay difference, thus only 20% of the $131.20 difference (excluding allowances). Therefore, workers will be $26.24 + lost allowances of $22.78 = a total of $49.02 worse off on 1 July.

On 1 July 2011 this rises to 40%, so in 18 months they will be $52.48 + lost allowances of $22.78 = a total of $75.26 worse off. The loss keeps rising until it is 100% realized in a further three years.

This is written into the Award with the full knowledge of the Deputy Prime Minister.

The critical point is that this is not a one off situation; this is now occurring across the country in many industries and workers may not yet be aware of the situation they may be in.
So much for her statement “I can give the guarantee that no worker … will be worse off.”

Most commented

23 comments

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    • acker says:

      06:26am | 25/02/10

      Your piddling around the edges Stuart, taking away unfair dismissal rights of employees of companies employing less than 15 people was at the heart of where the coalition lost most of it’s middle ground support.

    • Jen from Nana Glen says:

      10:14am | 25/02/10

      Well said.  Labor IR laws and their union mates ridiculous ambit wages and allowance claims, will stop investment in this country and send jobs overseas.

      Unemployed people don’t pay union fees.  When will unions stop biting the hand that feeds them.

    • formersnag says:

      02:52pm | 25/02/10

      All the liberal/national coalition have to do is repeal both “fair work” & “work choices”. Everybody admits that IR reform was taken a bit too far with “work choices”, that the system of EBA’s we had before, was fair, balanced, working well.

      In fact, all that any political party needs to promise, is that they will introduce no new policies at all. Just go backwards with 20/20 hindsight, undoing all past mistakes over the last 30 or 40 years, repeal all dud acts that have been damaging, to us, or the economy like “work choices”, “fair work”, “GST”, etc. Repeal, Repeal, Repeal, its easy.

      Make this pledge and the liberal/national coalition will win, in a landslide, wiping the red/green/labour coalition off the face of the earth forever. Our children will never be safe until the loony, lefties are gone.

    • John A Neve says:

      06:55am | 25/02/10

      An interesting topic, income -v- expenditure.
      A 19% increase in income plus tax cuts, wow, we should all be living high on the hog, but are we?
      Methinks not,  reason, cost and charges have increased inline if not faster.

      Prices and incomes are like a dog chasing it’s tail, the market charges what the market will bear.  This whole country would have been better off with no tax cuts and a cap on incomes. Percentage increases favour the top of town and always have.

    • T.Chong says:

      07:02am | 25/02/10

      The Labor scheme may have caused anomolies thru not been observant enough of all awards, etc and it is very harsh for those that lose out, and I hope is rectified soon, but it is still a long way from LNP policy,that deliberately set out to remove basic rights and conditions for all workers
      Thats the big difference, a difference that wage earner / voters are not going to forget.
      What you, Stuart, along with Abbott, Hockey, Minchin et al need to to do is be honest, and state that the LNP wants to reintroduce WorkChoices
      And last of all , for LNP credability , stop pretending yur extreme right policies are some how the wage earners friend.
      Over to you Foggy, Scotty .

    • AndrewS says:

      09:08am | 25/02/10

      Maybe you, and your Labor and Union friends should wait until Abbott announces his IR policy closer to the election before you decide to comment on Abbotts IR policy.  Being part of a scare campaign is one thing but at least wait first to see what Abbotts IR policy is, instead of spruiking about a policy that hasn’t even been announced. You sound like your just hoping and guessing it’s going to be the same as work choices. I doubt that very much.

    • Drewboy says:

      11:38am | 25/02/10

      T. Chong since you are all about honesty, can you please own up right here and now whether you are a card carrying member of the Labor Party.

      Your complete bias as missed the point of this entire article.

    • luke09 says:

      01:05pm | 25/02/10

      It is only a myth that labor and the unions are the only ones who care about workers rights. Both parties want people employed. The only difference is money is extracted by unions from workers to get the same conditions.

    • Evan Findlay says:

      08:21pm | 25/02/10

      Andrew S, Abbott already has announced his IR policy the day he was elected to the opposition leadership as he pledged his love of workchoices. The next day they did everything in their power to hose it down. But as dumb as a pile of bricks, Abbott just can’t shut his mouth. Only last week declaring his intention to abolish penalty rates because his mates in business are doing it hard and believe employees are an easy touch and will quiet happily forgo their entitlements. “Pigs Arse’, to quote John Elliott. Now I have never belonged to a union but should my rights at work be hijacked so that my employer’s bottom line can be improved then sign me up. Howard’s shortsighted policy of the first home owners grant has pushed my rent to the point that it now claims 50% of my income. If I was to lose my penalty rates on weekends I could no longer afford to look after my kids and continue to pay exhorbitant rents.  I work every weekend and have done for ten years. You talk of a scare campaign which only goes to show you are way off the mark. It’s not about scare tactics, it’s about trust. I could never trust Mr Abbott or Nick Minchin. I refuse to vote for them because they are untrustworthy and too focused on big business and not the employee. I will forever look after my interests and those of my children long before those of big business.

    • Jamie says:

      07:30am | 25/02/10

      Plus most small business have no idea how the new adward system works.  They can land in serious trouble if they dont figure out how the new IR laws apply to themselves.  Labours new IR policy is alot more complicated then the ex Workchoices.

    • Max Power says:

      08:47am | 25/02/10

      T.Chong.
      The only people stating that Abbott and co want to bring back workchoicesare tha ALP, the Unions and he Union hacks. Your asking Abbott and co to be honest, be honest and admit what you want them to admit. How about demanding the same Honesty from Rudd and Garrett, and admit that they did read the report handed to their departments many many months ago, as opposed to saying they ddin’t until a few days ago.
      As for workchoices, the only people who were stripped of their rights and had reduced awards and wages were the paid actors used in the false and misleading scare campaign by the Unions, posing as “real” people in “real” situations. The Unions didn’t like workchoices because it stripped the Unions of their power to bully and intimidate.

    • Dons Ghost says:

      10:00am | 25/02/10

      What a beat up!  All the employees are entitled to appy for a Take-home Pay Order that will preserve the pay an employee actually receives after tax and certain deductions such as salary sacrificing arrangements.

      The Order will cover wages, allowances, overtime payments and any incentive-based payments.

      None of the Spotless employees will be worse off!

    • Amused says:

      08:22pm | 25/02/10

      Except the NEW employees. Nice try, but NO CIGAR!

    • Dons Ghost says:

      12:22am | 03/03/10

      Well Stuart Robert isn’t talking about new employees - he is deceptively pretending existing employees will be worse off when that shouldn’t be the case.  In any event new employees aren’t “worse off”  because they never had the conditions to lose. Not to hard to follow is it?

    • davo says:

      10:54am | 25/02/10

      Well the promise about no worker being worse off makes me as sick as hearing kevin dudd saying “the buck stops with me”
      Both statements are clearly incorrect and misleading
      I just hope people realise the only job they want to protect is their own (oh, and their union mates)

    • Evan Findlay says:

      10:33pm | 25/02/10

      Like “Rock solid iron clad guarantees”. Similiar to core and non core promises. Wake up to yourself Davo, your the complete idiot. People in glass houses….....blah blah blah. Why bother with you uneducated, politically bias fools. And yes, I learn’t from the Howard government to look after my interests and my interests alone. F*ck everyone else. Greed is good. Free market works!

    • Con says:

      01:37pm | 25/02/10

      Trust rudd like you would trust a used car saleman.

    • Matt says:

      02:42pm | 25/02/10

      That’s a bit harsh on used car salesmen.

    • Con says:

      05:27pm | 25/02/10

      You are right - I do apologise to used car salemen everywhere. They don’t deserve to be compared to Krudd aka Mr Buck Stops With Me (Liar) aka Mr NATO (No Action Talk Only).

    • the truth will set you free says:

      03:22pm | 25/02/10

      Howard Government achieved real wage increases of over 19% - Oh really - the only wage increase ive had in years is from tax cuts. Is this 19% an average or a mean? Under Howard those ‘well off”, professional classes or those with jobs in high demand ie minimg did well. The rest not so well. Howard vigorously fought every increase in the minimum wage. Also the comparison cant be made as howard governed in boom times and the Rudd government is coming out of recession environment. The mere thought that the conservatives actually care about those on the minimum wage has me ROFL. This guys a comedian right?

    • eye4aneye says:

      05:06pm | 25/02/10

      Anyone earning over $100k per year knew they would be worse off under Labor - they may not get you at work but their waiting in the alley for you come tax time

    • hellohello says:

      11:33pm | 25/02/10

      We all know Abbott will bring back workchoices. The man tells too many lies

    • Kate says:

      08:59am | 26/02/10

      Spotless could make a business decision to keep the employees at their current rate of pay.  The award is just the minimum they have to be paid.  Spotless are being greedy corporates, trying to save a buck.

 

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