Treasurer Jim Chalmers says that inflation is likely to peak at 7.75% in the December quarter then decline over the next two years, while real wage rises will return next financial year, but the ACTU says the forecast only "deepens" the pay crisis, with the resumption of growth in mid-2024 meaning workers will have suffered four years of going backwards.
The Queensland Government appears to be continuing the rollout of its revised public sector wages policy, reaching an in-principle deal with the State's teachers that will deliver 11% in pay rises over three years, plus "cost of living top-up payments" of up to 3% a year.
NSW unions have called on the Perrottet Coalition Government to loosen the State's public sector pay cap after a Queensland offer to nurses that will deliver 11% in pay rises over three years plus "cost of living top-up payments" of up to 3% a year.
The FWC has this week approved a new agreement for the Australia Council of Social Service that lifts pay by the 4.6% rise in award minimum rates, provides new paid cultural and First Nations leave and enables employees to take a substitute public holiday for the January 26 "Invasion Day".
A proposed new agreement for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition provides substantial upfront pay rises and entitlements to five days paid climate disaster leave, 30 days paid gender affirmation leave and 12% super contributions, while it replaces workplace breastfeeding provisions with "chestfeeding" rights.
A UK national living wage review has found that while the NLW's introduction has not caused job losses, the expected productivity gains have failed to materialise.
The NSW Opposition has promised today that if it takes power at the March election, it will scrap the decade-old public sector wages cap and replace it with a productivity-based bargaining system.
In the wake of the RBA governor's warning about the risks of a wage-price spiral, new A-G's department data shows that bargained pay rises are flatlining at 2.7% a year in the private sector, rising at little more than half the 5.1% rate of headline consumer price inflation.
Former ACTU secretary and RBA director Bill Kelty has thrown his weight behind appointing someone with a union background to the Reserve Bank board, saying in the wake of claims about its limited perspectives that the central bank has not understood how wages operate "for a long time".
