Salary slips are Labor’s preferred battlefield
THE majority of workers in the Gold Coast seat of Forde say they either did not get a pay rise in the past 12 months or, if they did, it did not keep pace with inflation, according to a new survey.
More than 44 per cent of workers polled had not received a raise and almost 32 per cent who did said it did not cover cost-of-living increases.
Only 17 per cent of workers surveyed by uComms felt secure in their job.
The poll was commissioned by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, a powerful backer of the Labor Party.
Almost 52 per cent said their jobs were less secure than they were in the past, and more than 47 per cent believed the Government was not doing enough to support their employment.
The respondents were a mix of professionals (31 per cent), manual employees (22 per cent), technicians (17 per cent) and management (15 per cent).
About 515 people were polled in Forde, which LNP MP Bert van Manen holds by a slender margin.
Labor’s Forde candidate Des Hardman has been focusing his campaign on penalty rate cuts, estimating the costs to Coast workers in the hospitality and retail industries to be more than $26 million.
In a 10-day period from the Good Friday holiday break, the Opposition says Coast fastfood workers lost on average $218 in wages, hospitality employees about $281, those in restaurants $225 and retail staff more than $276.
“Working people in the Gold Coast and Logan, in the seat of Forde, are struggling to keep their heads above water,” ACTU secretary Sally McManus said. “They are worried about wages and insecure work and believe that the Morrison Government is not doing enough.
“Scott Morrison and his Government ignore the dayto-day struggles of working people. They don’t talk about low pay or insecure work because they have no answers, no plan and no solutions. They don’t even admit there is a problem.”
In his official campaign launch in Brisbane at the weekend, Labor leader Bill Shorten pledged to implement a living wage and reverse penalty rates as his first priority.
Ms McManus has called for a change in government and change in rules that “deliver a fair go for all”.
“Working people do not want to be taken further down the path to Americanisation where two, three, sometimes more jobs become the norm,” she said.