Basic Wage Increase In Australia

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28264, 30 April 1957, Page 13

Basic Wage Increase In Australia

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) MELBOURNE, April 29. Australian men working under Federal awards will receive 10s more a week from the middle of May. Women will get an increase of 7s 6d.

The increases will follow the decision, announced here today, of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to raise the Federal basic wage.

The commission refused the application of trade unions for the restoration of quarterly cost-of-living wage adjustments.

But it approved an annual review of the basic wage, starting next February. The increases will be effective at the first pay period beginning on or after May 15.

The basic wage differs in each Australian State. When the quarterly cost-of-liv-ing adjustments were suspended by the old Arbitration Court in October, 1953. the basic wage weighted averaged for the six State capitals was £ll 6s. The rate was increased by 10s a year ago and the increase announced today will make the sixcapitals figure £l2 16s. Some Australian States have continued to recognise quarterly cost-of-living adjustments in payments under State awards. On the basis of these adjustments the six-capitals figure at the last adjustment earlier this month was £l3 3s. Last October eight metal-trades unions, backed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, asked the newly-formed commission for the restoration of quarterly cost-of-living adjustments. This was rejected by the commission today. The commission judges—Mr Justice Kirby, Mr Justice Ashburner and Mr Justice Wright—said that today’s Federal award increase would put about £3O million a year more spending power in the pockets of the wageearning population. This would tend to raise prices, they said, and employers and employees should therefore work together for greater efficiency and reduce production costs. They said that the increase would have been greater but for the fact that workers under State awards were getting more than the community could afford. The Judges said that the result of the higher wages granted to State workers “has been to increase the wages of half the wage earners of Australia at the expense of the other half.” State awards, they said, were not fixed in -relation to the capacity of the community to pay, but in relation to living costs. Civil Servants Excluded Spokesmen for the State Governments in New South Wales and Victoria said after the commission’s announcement that Government employees would not get the Federal rise. Only in Adelaide is the State award basic wage lower than the new Federal award rate. The rates are:— New Present Federal State Wage Wage £sd £ s d Melbourne 12 15 0 13 3 0 Sydney .. 13 3 0 13 8 0 Brisbane .. 11 18 0 11 19 0 Adelaide .. 12 11 0 12 1 0 Hobart .. 13 2 0 12 12 0 Perth .. 12 16 0 13 8 0 The new wage in Melbourne is 7s less than it would have been if the cost of living adjustments had not been suspended. In Sydney it is 5s less, in Perth 24s less, in Hobart 15s less, in Brisbane Is less and in Adelaide Is more. Victoria’s Premier, Mr Henry Bolte, said today that the new Federal award increase was a levelling-out process bringing Federal and State basic wages closer together. / ' He was delighted with the commission’s decision to make an annual review of the basic wage.