Rechtub,
Cleaners would have to be some of the gentlest and most tolerant of people. They have to be, to put up with the crap so often handed out to them by arrogant and aloof people who think of themselves as being above it all.

In fact, I believe it would be a good training exercise for various members of society to undertake cleaning, and practice empting other people’s rubbish bins and cleaning their toilets.

Perhaps 6 months duty at cleaning for a teacher, 6 months for a politician, 12 months for a bank manager, 18 months for a solicitor, and 2 years for an academic in an Australian university.

This article completely ignores the elephant in the room - if the value of your labour in the marketplace is low or your skills are very easily replaced your wage will be low. The corollary is touched on by the mentioning of higher educated and skilled professions being paid more.

So, the solution for people at the low end of the pay scale that WANT to earn more is to skill up, and work towards a better paying position. The key word here is WANT.
I find that most of those that want the higher dollars are totally unwilling to make the sacrifices that go along with the higher pay package. How bad do you want it? Enough to go back to school? Start (and finish) a uni degree? Are you willing to move to a different city or state or country to find the right position? Are you willing to work 16 hour days for weeks on end if the circumstances demand it? These are all your personal choices.

Find a person that makes the kind of salary you want and do a little research into why they are paid that quantity. Does that person have unique skills? Has the person taken a large personal risk to achieve that position? How much responsibility does that person have? How many hours do they work on an average day? Are they on call 24/7? Then make and execute a plan for yourself. If you are unwilling to do this you are wasting everyone's time by your "poor me" whinging.

The bottom line is to be paid a high salary package you must have tangible, unique skills that are in high demand and the willingness and ability to deploy those skills professionally anywhere they are required. Life is all choices.

Bruce,
Perhaps a means to determine an appropriate level of pay is to pay someone on what they produce. If someone produces something that in turn produces wealth for others, then that person should be well rewarded.

Unfortunately, we seem to be very well rewarding people who produce very little, and just feed off the system. Examples would be real estate agents, solicitors etc who are just feeders on society, because they produce basically nothing.

I would also include most teachers and academics in this group. Australia is now in the bottom half of comparable countries in terms of litaeracy and numeracy, and there would not be one aspect of education that shows any signs of improvement.

Schools and universities also use very little that is produced inside the country, and most of what is in a school or university is imported. So schools and universities have now become feeders on the whole country.

Bruce and rehctub, as worker and as an academic I totally agree with you. It pays to be strategic and hard-working.

Sorry Vanna but I'm not sure what the going rate is for nonsensical whinging.

David Jennings,
What is the education system actually producing?

It has become a half-rate education system that does not show any signs of improvement in any area.

Ultimately, someone should be paid according to what they actually produce, and you have to get better and better at what you produce.

Vanna, have you actually in the education system? Have you been to university? Did you get a job based on the discipline you studied? Or did you go to tafe or any other training institute and get a real skill?

If you haven't been in the system, how can you really judge it? Especially when you don't seem to get how the economy works.

"Australia is now in the bottom half of comparable countries in terms of litaeracy and numeracy, and there would not be one aspect of education that shows any signs of improvement."

Those are incredibly sweeping statements. How can you back those up?