A positive economic outlook and sustained labour productivity improvement are key factors in yesterday's Fair Work Commission's decision to award a 3% increase to award rates of pay, with the minimum wage panel again advising employer groups that they need to introduce more rigour to their surveys if they are to have any influence on the tribunal's deliberations.
The ACTU's bid to remove former senior public servant Tony Cole from this year's annual wage review has failed, after he told the peak body in a consultation hearing this morning that he would not step down because he was not a party to the Audit Commission's recommendation to reduce the minimum wage.
Advocating a much more severe cut to the Coalition's paid parental leave scheme than Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced on Tuesday, the National Audit Commission has recommended the government cap payments at average weekly earnings and plough the resulting savings into child care assistance.
Private sector agreements approved in the December quarter provided average pay rises of 3.6% a year, slightly up on the 3.5% annual increase recorded in the September quarter, according to Department of Employment data released today.
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Wage growth in private sector agreements lodged in the June quarter has dropped to 3.5% a year, well below the post-GFC average of about 3.9%, according to new data released by DEEWR today.
Almost 700 Reserve Bank employees have won annual average pay rises of 3.83% a year with the potential for more from a 2% annual bonus pool and a "career increment" pool that has been set at about 1% for the first year, under a new agreement with the FSU.
