Turbulance … Sharan Burrow says Qantas workers are being asked to take a real pay cut (AAP: Mick Tsikas)
This morning Australian Council of Trade Unions president Sharan Burrow is going into talks with Qantas unions about their claim for a wage rise.
But Ms Burrow isn’t happy with the way wage restraint is being handled in Australia.
On the one hand she says she’s battling to get a small wage increase of above 3 per cent for Qantas employees, while elsewhere corporate bosses in Australia are getting obscene payouts.
Yesterday it was announced the outgoing head of the Macquarie Group, Allan Moss, will receive a $50 million payout package.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported last September that Qantas chief Geoff Dixon received a salary of $6,700,000 for the financial year of 2006-2007.
Ms Burrow spoke on AM to chief political correspondent Lyndal Curtis.
SHARAN BURROW: I don’t think anybody deserves $50 million. It is so far beyond what working Australians can even grasp as reality, that it is just now a level of obscenity to see the greed of CEOs.
When you consider that we have got a dispute with Qantas and their management gets millions of dollars – between $3 million and $7 million as a base salary – and yet they’re trying to tell workers to take a real pay cut, to take 3 per cent.
LYNDAL CURTIS: But Mr Moss is running a pretty successful company. It has profit nearly $2 billion this financial year. Surely he is being paid what his company thinks he is worth?
SHARAN BURROW: Working Australians, I must say, I was speechless. I’m sure they’ll do the same thing and when you come back again to the kind of, you know, fair go at the bargaining table, we say to these CEOs, you can’t possibly earn so much beyond what you are prepared to pay in increases for working Australians and think that somehow that is fair enough.
LYNDAL CURTIS: But isn’t the reality that when the Reserve Bank looks at wage outcomes, it is not looking at a handful of CEOs or managers, it’s looking at a broader scope of the population and that it’s concerned that higher wages have the prospect to fuel inflation and could result in an interest rates rise?
SHARAN BURROW: Surely we haven’t lost our moral compass to the point where people can take away tens of millions of dollars in salary every year and yet the very workers who have made their companies profitable, don’t get a fair deal, don’t get a fair share of those profits.
LYNDAL CURTIS: Do you accept though that there is a risk if you’re pushing for higher wages for workers that the Reserve Bank might see that as inflationary and slam on the brakes through another interest rate rise?
SHARAN BURROW: There can be no economic sanity if working families can’t pay their bills. So if we’ve got such a rich nation and yet only the mega-rich can take from that pool of shares and built worth and working Australians can’t get a pay rise that maintains their living standards, that allows them to pay the bills, something is very, very wrong about that
May 21, 2008 at 11:07 pm |
No fair minded person thinks that it is ok for any corporate ‘fat cat’ to earn millions per year when the very workers who deliver the company profits, are struggling to feed and clothe their family.
If there’s one thing that Australians do understand; it is what a fair go means. That’s what sets this nation apart from others.
We just have to ensure that the Australian public are not only aware that these corporate rich hypocrites exist, they are being financially rewarded for making their workers and their families suffer through sheer misery on the pittance they are expected to live on to pay their bills and manage a roof over their heads.
The workers in Qantas Freight have lost income levels between $40 – $150 a week just through roster changes in the last few months (all in the name of customer efficiency). Over the next few weeks, freight workers will be in the position where Dixon is telling us to accept the miserable 3% on offer after many have just lost at least 10% or more. Well the threats won’t deter us!
According to our calculations, -10% + 3% equals at least -7% and when you add the current inflation levels with petrol and food prices, you don’t need to be a mathematical genius or a half decent economist to understand what this means for Qantas Workers and their families.
It is never good enough to simply say that Qantas is providing jobs. A job with dignity, respect and a fair income for a fair day’s work is the ethos we understand Mr Dixon!
The other thing we do understand is that no amount of corporate ’spin’ will undo the facts that Qantas are reducing the real wages of its workers when at the same time, Qantas Executives are increasing their remuneration by at least 20% or more.
No amount of spin will undo the facts that Qantas Executives have engaged in illegal price fixing that has cost Qantas at least A$70 Million thus far, so when it comes to customer efficiency, you better ask us and we are sure we can come up with some mathematics that may assist you in your “wage policy” deliberations and your customer efficiency.
Enough is enough…..if you read this and you fly Qantas then at least do a couple of things.
1. Post a comment and tell Qantas Executives what your family will do if they don’t listen.
2. Don’t fly Qantas until they wake up and recognise the efforts of the entire Qantas workforce who have delivered a profitable, efficient and safe airline for flying public for the best part of a century.
Mark these words, they will then listen!