Burke: Minimum wage earners should profit from JobKeeper payments
20/05/2021 Sky News Australia.
Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke says employees should also reap the benefits of “huge profits” earned by companies off the back of the federal government’s JobKeeper payments.
The Coalition has so far resisted calls from unions to increase the minimum wage by 3.5 per cent with new data showing a 1.5 per cent increase in wages since March 2020.
“It’s not a recovery if people’s wages are effectively going backwards,” Mr Burke said.
“If the recovery is doing well enough that JobKeeper can be withdrawn, surely the recovery can be doing well enough that workers, particularly workers on the minimum wage, get a share of what’s happening.
“The first thing the government could do is advocate for an increase to the minimum wage which they haven’t done.
“We’ve got businesses calling for either a pay freeze or arguing for a 1.1 per cent increase. That means people’s wages go backwards. How is that a recovery? Some of the companies advocating for a pay freeze are companies that earned huge profits off the back of JobKeeper.
“It was good enough for them to make huge profits off the back of JobKeeper and pocket that money, it’s not good enough for a small percentage of that to find its way to their employees.”