Yahoo Finance DOUBLE PAY: Young Aussies win major pay rise
Young retail workers earning junior rates will see their pay more than double from February next year following a major decision handed down today by the Fair Work Commission (FWC).
The FWC’s decision follows an application from SDA, the national retail workers’ union, and means junior rates will no longer apply to teenage and young adult workers who are ‘level 4’ employees or above.
Junior employees are defined by the Fair Work Ombudsman as anyone younger than 21 years of age.
However, there are different categories of junior workers, split by age: those 15 years or younger, and those who are 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20. Though all employees under 21 are considered ‘junior’, the pay rates will differ according to each age.
Under the FWC’s decision, level 4 workers aged 15 years or younger, who currently earn $10.21 an hour, will earn $22.70 an hour from 1 February 2021.
This is an increase of $12.49 – more than double their current pay.
However, a general pay increase of 1.75 per cent will kick in on the same date, bringing the new rate even higher to $23.10 an hour.
According to SDA secretary Josh Peak, level 4 retail workers perform management roles like front-end supervisor, or night-fill manager.
The new rates bring young employees’ pay in line with adult rates, he said.
“It is not fair that a young manager can be paid less than people they are managing,” he told Yahoo Finance.
Younger workers on even higher employee levels stand to gain even more; level 8 employees aged 15 or younger are currently being paid $11.79 an hour, but will see their hourly rate rise to $26.75 come February.
BREAKING: The @SDAunion has had a big win in the Fair Work Commission as part of our junior rates campaign.
From Feb 1, there will be no junior rates of pay in the Retail Award from Level 4 up.
This means thousands of young workers will now earn the full adult rate of pay!— Josh Peak (@Josh_Peak) November 24, 2020
In handing down the decision, the FWC said minimum wages in modern awards were underpinned by “concepts of uniformity and consistency”.
“In a practical sense this means that the minimum wage rate for a tradesperson should be set consistently across the modern award system; this is not the case in the Retail Award because of the application of junior rates to level 4 employees,” the FWC stated.
The previous arrangements “discriminated against both adult and junior workers”, according to the union.
“Junior employees could be favoured over adults because of the lower rates. On the other hand, it discriminated against junior workers because they were doing the work of an adult and getting a lower rate of pay,” an SDA statement said.
The FWC decision represents “another important step” in securing fair pay for ‘junior’ employees, the union believes.
“Young workers are an important part of the Australian workforce and the SDA will continue to fight for their rights and fair treatment at work.”
jessica.yun@yahoofinance.com
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