ACTU – Biggest ever worker survey shows Australians want fair pay, secure jobs

Biggest ever worker survey shows Australians want fair pay, secure jobs
2 March 2018

The largest survey of workers ever undertaken by the Australian union movement, released today, shows that working Australians are overwhelmingly concerned about the difficulty of winning fair pay increases and the threats to good, secure jobs.

The survey of 57,959 people conducted from September 2017 to February 2018 found:

• 81.4% say it’s hard to get a decent pay rise in their workplace
• 91% are worried about the loss of permanent jobs for the next generation of workers in Australia
• 95.6 % agreed unions should be able to bargain with the decision makers, whether it’s at enterprise, franchise, sector or industry level
• 83.5% say its “extremely important” to change the rules so employers cannot get away with underpaying workers
• Of the respondents, 90.91% were union members. 

Quotes attributable to ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus:

• “Working people speak with one voice on the most important issues in our country.”
• “The rules are broken. It’s too hard to get a pay rise, but big business is getting a tax cut thanks to Turnbull. Our work is less secure and we are worried about losing our jobs but corporate profits are surging.
• “We are not buying the Turnbull Government’s lie of trickle-down economics.
• “The Turnbull Government needs to start listening to working people instead of big corporations.
• “We are demanding that all parties step up to the plate and address these key issues. Woking people need rules that let them win pay rises and have good, secure jobs.”