Helen Masterman-Smith and Babara Pocock have published a new book called "Living low paid the dark side of prosperous australia".
The book takes us through the jobs and lives of low paid Australians,mainly working in the service industries.It's a sad enditement of our society today,that in a country as rich as ours
people are poorly paid for what they do.It has been said that the poverty line for a single income family of four is $38000 a year, many of these people earn nowhere near this.In fact
in the retail sector-one of the largest industries and employers of labour, the average wage is around $32000 a year before tax.Consider this? the largest hardware retailer's CEO earned
$4.5 million last year and received a bonus of $760,000.When many of his workers earned less than the above poverty line;not even 1% of his salary.How can we justify this level of largesse?
How can a labour government allow this to continue?

Excellent well overdue post Tumblegum.

and I'd bet my bottom dollar [when I have one to spare] that many of these low-income earners contribute greatly in a voluntary capacity to fellow Australians, their families and children.

*How can we justify this level of largesse?*

Quite easily Tumblegum. People are paid what they are
worth to the company, and really intelligent individuals
who can run such a company, are extremely hard to find.

As shareholders risk billions upon billions of $ of
losses, if the CEO gets it wrong, they are clearly happy
to pay him a good salary to keep him there and motivated,
or he might just wander off and go and run another company
which rewards his talent.

But see it another way. Let's say we employ a dummy for
100 k$ and split the remaining 4.4 million amongst the
remaining employees. Given that tens of thousands are
employed by the company, how much would each of them
actually gain? Very little indeed.

What if the dummy makes mistakes and sends the company
broke and they all lose their jobs?

What about the stupid shareholders, who were not smart
enough to hire the smartest bloke to run the company and
so lose all their hard earned savings? Are you going to
care about them too?

The poverty line is relative. It costs a lot less to live in a small country town than to live in one of the cities, but the local median wage is also lower. One of my older relatives lives off about $6000 per year (single, older, doesnt drink or smoke, only goes out to community events, owns home, doesnt buy magazines, doesnt own a computer or mobile phone....). Other relatives with kids SAVE on Newstart Allowance. You start trying to buy a decent house in a good area of Sydney, suddenly you need to be pulling in $200kpa and you'd STILL be on the poverty line. Dont even start me on the costs of childcare or private school fees!

Look closer yabby at the throw away people who do live well under that poverty line in this country.
Yes I understand supply and demand.
And market forces.
I also know some casuals are throw away human beings.
just on 3 years ago a country boss sat and told his workers they either signed his 3 year agreement or he got others to do the work.
No jobs in that town they did him two favors dropped the intention of asking a union in, and signed his agreement.
He assured them it was registered with Howard's work choices system and it was ok.
IT FAILED Howard's test never was legal.
His highest paid workers are his formen $20 an hour.
Only over time is earned after 10 hours is worked.
And even on Sunday only at time and a half.
Some casuals get even less, it Will get worse not better as we will never again get rid of body hire, profit matters more than people.
Here in my last statement is why we no longer train enough skilled workers profits rule.