GrodsCorp

Pay me my money down

Thursday 28 February 2008, 5:27 pm

Bridgit Gread

Categories: Politics, Prodos, Society

Tags: capitalism, economics, pay, Prodos

Ain’t wage rises funny? In January my own salary went up by 4 per cent. Nurses last year won a base increase of 3.25 per cent. Victorian teachers want 10 per cent but although they’re poking John Brumby in the arse with a sharp stick, it doesn’t look like they’ll get more than 3.5-4 per cent. Meanwhile, those on the minimum wage must’ve danced in the street last July: they scored between 1 and 1.9 per cent, or $5-10 a week. And the goose who came up with that last figure?

Fair Pay Commissioner Ian Harper - who works for the Federal Government advising on pay standards in addition to private business interests - got a $38,000 pay rise while he considered the plight of the nation’s minimum wage workers last year and decided to award them just $10 extra a week.

Prof Harper’s own pay packet for his part-time job advising the Federal Government on fair wages has jumped 47 per cent from $81,445 to $119,830 a year after the Commonwealth Remuneration Tribunal awarded him a rise. (Source)

Someone call Prodos - his ‘trickle-down capitalism’ seems to have a fricken big blockage.

5 Comments

Steve D (Thursday 28 February 2008, 6:13 pm) #

Teachers were never going to get 10%, no matter how deserved it may be. Of course, if you’d only asked for 4% the government would be trying to give you 1%.
The Editor (Thursday 28 February 2008, 6:34 pm) #

Maybe Harper’s ambit claim was 130% in order to score his 47%.
Wah (Thursday 28 February 2008, 6:49 pm) #

See, the trouble is while teachers fight for a pay rise just to give them parity with their interstate peers, people like this get massive pay rises, CEOs walk away with golden parachutes in the millions even when the company makes a loss and politicians get 6% every year and a super scheme that’s better than winning Tattslotto.

Meanwhile us mugs are told that if we don’t shut the fuck up and the whole world will go to hell just because we want a few more bucks to pay for petrol and milk.

So what do we do? We accept this. We take it up the arse while the pollies, senior public servants and CEOs smoke big fuck-off cigars and laugh in disbelief as we fall for this shit. The knee slapping becomes absolute gaffawing when, to “control spending” they put up interest rates which affects most people but them, while with their annual bonus they buy another Aston Martin.

We need to take a leaf out of the French people’s book and start blocking freeways with burning trucks and dead horses.

The world’s fucked and we’re the wet patch!

(Fuck, this was long - damn I should have done this on MY blog).
Jeremy (Thursday 28 February 2008, 10:56 pm) #

I enjoyed the way the Hun reported this. First, they compared the $10 figure with the $38,000 figure just like that, without noting that one was per week and the other was per year.

Then, they listed various groups and how their pay has increased over the last year.

Funnily enough, executives were not one of the groups mentioned! CEO salaries were conspicuously absent.
Bridgit Gread (Friday 29 February 2008, 12:15 pm) #

First, they compared the $10 figure with the $38,000 figure just like that, without noting that one was per week and the other was per year.

That must be counterbalanced by the fact that Harper only works for approximately 12 weeks per year and otherwise is a tenured academic - so on that basis his salary is actually increasing by more than $3000 per week. The Herald Sun may have done some number-juggling for effect, but whichever way the balls fall they look ugly.