5% campaign continues in face of bosses’ pay rises

March 17, 2006

5% campaign continues in face of bosses’ pay rises

Latest figures showing that chief executives’ pay rose an average 5.8 per cent last year confirms that the union campaign for a five per cent pay rise for working people is bang-on, says the country’s largest union.

Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union national secretary Andrew Little, who launched the Fair Share – Five in ’05 campaign in February last year, said that there would be no letting up in the campaign this year.

“For the first time in years, unionised workers’ pay packets increased at about the same rate as those of their bosses, and that was because of the Fair Share campaign,” he said.

“Employers should be aware that the Fair Share campaign is not over.”

Figures from the Sheffield 2006 CEO survey show that executive base pay rates rose 5.8 per cent last year, while government statistics show that the average rise for workers who got pay rises last year was 5.4 per cent.

Mr Little said that 421 of the 525 collective agreements the EPMU had negotiated in the year since launching the campaign included pay rises of five per cent or more. Just 42 agreements delivered pay rises of less than 3.5 per cent.

“But we’ve still got lots of agreements that haven’t come up for negotiation yet,” he said.

“The Fair Share campaign is still very much alive.”

ENDS

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