Retailers call for wage freeze for low-paid

IGA and FoodWorks are among the companies backing a pay freeze until at least the middle of next year.

Retailers say the Fair Work Commission should not ‘award an increase to wages in 2022/2023, to allow independent supermarkets, liquor, timber and hardware stores to remain viable and serve as an important source of employment’.

Retailers are calling for a real wage cut for low-paid workers, urging the Fair Work Commission to freeze the minimum wage and not grant an increase until at least mid-2023.

Master Grocers Australia and Timber Merchants Australia, whose members include IGA, FoodWorks and Mitre 10, said there needed to be minimum wage restraint if the independent retail sector was “to survive”.

They said the commission should not “award an increase to wages in 2022-023, to allow independent supermarkets, liquor, timber and hardware stores to remain viable and serve as an ­important source of employment in Australia”.

“Covid-19 has dominated the 2021 economic landscape, with independent businesses in every state being subject to lockdowns, restrictions, and the Covid-19 virus itself,” they said in a submission to the commission’s annual minimum wage review.

“Independent retailers are resilient and have survived the difficulties of engaging in business despite the significant wage increases of 11.05 per cent during the period 2017-20 and the recent increase of 2.5 per cent on 1 September 2021.”

They said the need for food commodities had been “a saving grace for the supermarket industry, and consumers’ perceived need to occupy time in lockdowns and during construction shutdowns has been the saving grace for the timber and hardware industry”.

“Although small businesses were resilient and adaptive to the challenges of this year, it does not diminish the difficulties they faced in this unprecedented time,” their submission says.

“There is no immediate solution to the financial strain that small businesses have and will face; however, a more conservative wage increase, or no increase at all, would provide at least some minimal relief.”

Gerard Dwyer, national secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, said the freeze call was a disgrace and unconscionable: “As the Morrison government acknowledges in the budget papers, yet again inflation will outstrip wage growth in the coming year, leaving low-paid workers suffering a real cut in their take-home pay unless the Fair Work Commission agrees to an equitable increase in this year’s Annual Wage Review.”

The ACTU is seeking a 5 per cent wage rise for 2.3 million low-paid and award-reliant workers.