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Australian Workplace AgreementsMajor employers to slash take-home payMajor employers Spotless Services Australia and the Coles-Myer company have moved to take advantage of the Howard Government's new industrial relations laws by slashing workers' take-home pay by up to $160 a week.
A Spotless Services document also states that the company does not expect the newly-established Australian Fair Pay Commission to award increases in minimum wages of 'more than 1%-2%' - which would represent a significant cut in real wages for 1.6 million award workers. "Here we have Spotless Services, a major employer in the hospitality and services sector, and Coles-Myer, one of Australia's biggest corporations, starting to use the new IR laws to cut the wages of their employees. In the case of Coles-Myer, the outsourcing of maintenance work for its stores to a new national contractor PMS Ltd will result in the loss of Rostered Days Off and a pay cut of $8,000 a year for some of the skilled tradespeople it employs at outlets that include Bourke St Melbourne. The new Coles-Myer contracting arrangements are part of a national re-shuffle of around 70 maintenance contracts that will affect the jobs of hundreds of employees nation-wide. Currently, qualified electricians in its Melbourne stores are contracted to Coles-Myer on an annual salary of $53,000 a year but the new contractor, PMS Ltd, is only offering to pay electricians and other skilled tradespeople $45,000 a year under a new 'greenfields' non-union employment contract registered last week. The PMS Ltd website states that the company is 'urgently recruiting' electricians, carpenters, plumbers and painters - http://www.pmsltd.com.au . Spotless Services Australia is currently engaged in negotiations with the LHMU over a new employment agreement that affects the wages and conditions of more than 130 cleaners and catering staff at four defence force locations in Victoria, including the Puckapunyal army barracks. A document given to unions by the law firm acting on behalf of Spotless specifically refers to the Howard Government's new industrial relations laws, stating:
As a result, Spotless is offering its cleaners and catering staff a new contract that cuts their wages and removes or reduces important entitlements such as part time and casual loadings, overtime and redundancy. Spotless also plans to introduce 'split shifts' that mean a worker can be paid to help prepare breakfast, then be unpaid for two hours, and then be required to work again during the lunch period," said Mr Combet. "It is extremely worrying that major companies are already starting to factor in expectations that the new Fair Pay Commission will cut real minimum wages. If as Spotless' lawyers state, the Fair Pay Commission gives a pay increase of only 1%-2%, with inflation now running at 3% this means that 1.6 million Australians that rely on award wages will see their living standards go backwards. But it also means that wages throughout the workforce will be held down as employers start to use the Fair Pay Commission as a yardstick in their own negotiations over Collective Agreements or individual contracts," said Mr Combet.
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© 2001 Community & Public Sector Union - State Public Services Federation (CPSU-SPSF) - National Office http://www.cpsu-spsf.asn.au/latest_news/general/20060502_pay.html Site proudly designed and engineered by Social Change Online |
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