From July 1, Prime Minister Scott Morrison will receive a 2% pay rise on top of his already inflated parliamentary salary. Morrison currently earns $538,460 a year and in a few weeks time will earn an additional $10,000 a year. The current base salary for federal MPs and Senators is $207,100.
Minimum wage
The Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC), several other trade unions and the Malaysian Socialist Party (PSM) have slammed as “humiliating” and “beggarly” the new Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) federal government’s announcement that it would increase the country's minimum wage by just RM50 (A$17) a month to RM1050 ($350) from next January.
Unions are considering calling a mass workers’ protest.
Pakatan Harapan had promised to raise the minimum wage to RM1500 within 100 days if it won the May 9 general election.
Hundreds of Haiti's factory workers protested in Port-au-Prince on July 10 against the government’s proposed paltry rise in the minimum wage.
Currently paid US$4.75 a day, workers mainly from factories outsourced to foreign companies are demanding wages rise to US$12.75 dollars for eight hours of work.
However, the government has said the minimum wage should only rise by 55 cents.
Minimum wages rises $22 a week
Australia's lowest-paid workers will get a $22 a week pay rise after the Fair Work Commission lifted the national minimum wage to $694.90 from July 1.
FWC lifted the wage by 3.3% or 59 cents an hour to $18.29 an hour. Inflation for the year to the end of March was 2.1%. Minimum rates in modern awards will also rise by 3.3%.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus said the rise would not make up for penalty rate cuts affecting 700,000 workers.
The decision will affect up to 2.3 million people reliant on minimum rates of pay.
As if the decision to cut the penalty rates of around 700,000 low paid workers in the retail, hospitality and fast food sectors wasn’t enough, restaurant bosses are now opposing any increase to the minimum wage.
Workers in El Salvador won a big rise in the minimum wage on January 1 — in some cases doubling their pay.
But before they had time to celebrate, the multinational companies who thrive on the country’s still-low wages counterattacked with mass layoffs, judicial manoeuvres and a bid to undermine the eight-hour day.
“Voters in four states — Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington — said yes on November 8 to ballot initiatives that will boost their state’s minimum hourly wage, offering hope, advocates say, of an increased standard of living for roughly 2.1 million workers,” Common Dreams said on November 9.
Domino's Pizza workers are missing out on penalty rates worth at least $32 million a year due to an old deal struck between the company and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA).
Under a deal struck in 2009, before the introduction of the national award system, which set minimum standards for the fast-food industry, Domino's need not pay workers penalty rates for late-night or weekend shifts.
I guess there were some people who thought that the leopard Tony Abbott may have changed his spots after his look-we've-changed 2015 federal budget. The polls certainly suggest this.
As William Bowie wrote in his Poll Bludger column in Crikey.com: “A flurry of post-budget opinion polls adds up to a solid increase in the Coalition’s standing, with Tony Abbott’s personal standing now rivalling his least-bad results since his short-lived post-election honeymoon.”