Australia has new two-tier wage-fixing

Press, 11 March 1987, Page 9

Australia has new two-tier wage-fixing

By

NICK BROWN

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney

Australia’s seven million wage and salary workers yesterday were given a flat SAIO ($l2) a week general wage increase, with the potential to bargain for further rises of up to 4 per cent, under a new two-tier wage-fixing system. The two-tier system comes into effect after the Australian Council of Trade Unions recognised late last year that Australia could no longer afford to sustain the wageindexation system, which the Hawke Government introduced soon after coming to power-in 1983. The Government has tried to soften union reaction to the Arbitration Commission’s wage deci-

sion by promising to unveil stern new price surveillance measures later in the week, aiming to balance the need for wage restraint with price restraint Some trade unionists reacted angrily to the wages package, which also offers a further wage hearing in October to consider topping up wages another 1.5 per cent and strong unions have indicated possible withdrawal from centralised wage-fixing. Some observers see increased industrial disruption as inevitable.

The A.C.T.U. president, Mr Simon Crean, was moderate in his response, however, and said that while some unions would not like the commission’s decision, over all the package was satisfactory.