[Source: AAP News]
Unions have lifted their minimum wage demands to six per cent after the federal budget warned inflation would hit five per cent by the middle of the year.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions had originally called for almost three million workers on minimum and award wages to receive a five per cent pay increase when the Fair Work Commission hands down its annual wage review in June.
But worsening inflation expectations caused by the war in the Middle East have prompted the peak union body to aim higher.
A six per cent wage rise would increase the minimum wage to $26.45 an hour and leave a full-time worker on the minimum wage $57 a week better off.
Workers are still behind where they were in 2021 and should not be allowed to go backwards further because of US President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, ACTU secretary Sally McManus said.
She argued higher minimum and award wages did not lead to increased inflation because they were separate to the enterprise bargaining system.
“Ten per cent of the overall payroll is the minimum wage workers, and them getting a pay rise that keeps up with inflation, or a bit more, doesn’t feed into anyone else’s pay rise,” she told reporters on Thursday.
AMP chief economist Shane Oliver disagreed, saying such an increase would be “disastrous” for inflation.
Award wages directly influence pay rise claims across the economy, he said.
The Fair Work Commission references its decision off quarterly inflation in March, which came in at 4.1 per cent.
