AUSTRALIAN WAGE RISE SET AT 10 DLRS A WEEK
The Arbitration Commission awarded
the Australian workforce a flat 10 dlrs a week wage increase
and allowed trade unions to begin bargaining for a second-tier
increase of up to four pct, Commission President Justice Barry
Maddern said here.
    The decision is effective from the next pay period of
individual employers, he said in delivering the Commission's
National Wage Case decision.
    Full-time adult ordinary time weekly earnings are 453.00
dlrs a week for males and 428.40 dlrs for all adults, according
to latest official statistics.
    The wage decision is the first under the previously
announced two-tier system which replaced the concept of wage
indexation. It is the first national wage rise since a
partially-indexed increase of 2.3 pct was awarded by the
Commission last July.
    The decision is a compromise between the Federal
government's call at the Wage Case hearing for a 10 dlr weekly
rise plus a three pct second-tier ceiling and the Australian
Council of Trade Unions' (ACTU) claim of 20 dlrs and up to four
pct.
    Employer groups had sought no rise at all.
    The Commission is willing to convene another Wage Case in
October to establish if another wage increase of up to 1.5 pct
should be awarded, Maddern said.
    He said the success of the new system depended on the
commitment of all parties - employers, unions and governments.
    He said the Commission had rejected employers' calls for a
freeze on overall labour cost increases.
    "We do not think that such an outcome is feasible, given the
needs and expectations of wage and salary earners,' he said,
adding a freeze could have destroyed the possibility of a
cooperative effort to lift Australia's economic performance.
    The decision would ensure the effects of the depreciation
of the Australian dollar and the adverse terms of trade would
not be reflected in wage increases, Maddern said.
    If necessary, it would arbitrate second-tier claims at an
implementation rate of no more than two pct from September this
year and a further two pct from July 1988, he said.
    He said labour cost rises would be phased in over the life
of the package, adding that second-tier rises will be mainly
achieved by a restructuring and efficiency principle, covering
elimination of restrictive work practices, improved efficiency
and productivity and reduction of demarcation disputes.
    Maddern said the Commission again ruled out claims for a
cut in weekly working hours below 38 and allowed employers to
be exempted from wage case decisions on the basis of severe or
extreme economic adversity.
    The Commission said the poor economic outlook noted in its
last decision had persisted, and was perhaps now more serious.
    "The prevailing uncertainty and lack of confidence in the
economy which underlines the economic circumstances must be
allayed to halt further decline and to turn the economy around.
In this connection, what happens to labour costs is of critical
importance," he said.
 REUTER
