Minimum wages now in business’ sights

Mark Phillips

http://workinglife.org.au

July 31, 2013

FIRST it was penalty rates. Then came the resurrection of individual contracts. Now business groups are going after minimum wages in their campaign to cut the conditions and rights of Australian workers.

The Business Council of Australia – the union for the CEOs of Australia’s largest 100 companies – has opened up this new front in a major report released today titled Economic Action Plan for
Enduring Prosperity.

A recommendation within the report urges the Treasurer to establish a Productivity Commission inquiry into the workplace relations system examining, among other things, penalty rates, individual agreements, and minimum wages.

This puts more flesh onto the federal Coalition’s industrial relations policy proposal to set up a Productivity Commission inquiry as one of the first orders of business should it win this year’s election.

The BCA’s report is the latest salvo by business groups agitating…