- Title
- The belated return of an Australian living wage: Reworking 'a fair go' for the 21st century
- Creator
- Healy, Joshua; Pekarek, Andreas; Fells, Ray
- Relation
- The Living Wage Advancing a Global Movement p. 162-177
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003054078-15
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- This chapter traces the achievements and challenges of Australia’s pursuit of a living wage. For much of the twentieth century, a distinctive system of compulsory arbitration sought to balance the competing criteria of workers’ needs and employers’ capacity to pay. This system served Australia well, delivering equitable real wage growth and coordinated responses to economic downturns. Starting in the 1980s, however, public policy shifted to emphasize workplace-level wage determination. The authors examine how this agenda to ‘free up’ the labour market has affected Australia’s ability to maintain, and enforce, its wages safety net. Comparisons with other OECD countries show that Australia’s real minimum wage remains high but has declined in recent years, relative to several other benchmarks. The incidence of employment at low pay, and below the minimum wage, are also explored for different industry sectors in Australia. The authors conclude with an assessment of the union movement’s recent attempts to reinvigorate a living wage campaign, in the face of an increasingly fragmented workforce and a diminished arbitration system.
- Subject
- living wage; real wage growth; economic downturns; public policy
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1449536
- Identifier
- uon:43690
- Identifier
- ISBN:97810004486721000448673
- Language
- eng
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