Australian governments impose wage freezes on public sector workers

COVID-19 infections may have been contained to a certain extent in Australia—although new outbreaks are emerging as safety restrictions are recklessly lifted for the sake of corporate profit. But the country is certainly no exception when it comes to the ruling class ramping up its drive to impose on workers the full cost of the deepening global economic breakdown triggered by the pandemic.

After handing hundreds of billions of dollars to big business and high-income recipients via “stimulus packages” and tax cuts, the federal, state and territory governments are inflicting wage freezes or below-inflation “caps” on public sector workers, including frontline health workers and teachers.

Liberal-National Coalition and Labor Party governments alike are exploiting the pandemic to deepen a decades-long attack on working class pay and conditions. Real wages had fallen for six years even before the pandemic, taking the wages share of national income to the lowest level since the 1950s.

Last Friday, the federal Coalition government followed the lead of several state and territory governments, notably the Labor governments in Queensland and the Northern Territory, which have both announced protracted wage freezes.

Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/17/wage-n17.html