New ‘working poor’ of growing concern
More casual jobs and the limited bargaining power of low-skilled workers have created a new “working poor”, according to the head of the Senate inquiry into poverty. By Cherelle Murphy taken from Australian Financial Review, 22nd August 2003
Labor senator Steve Hutchins said evidence to the inquiry over the past four months suggested Australia’s industrial relations system was too harsh on low-skilled and semi-skilled workers.
The inquiry comes as one of Australia’s largest companies, Qantas, says it will reduce the proportion of its permanent staff over the next two years from 85 per cent to 75 to 80 per cent.
Senator Hutchins said this kind of casualisation increased poverty and financial hardship.
“I thought we had arrested all this stuff,” he said. “But the deterioration of full-time adult employment and the shift in the balance of power in the workplace, away from people who have low skills, has had a significant impact on the people suffering poverty and financial hardship.”
He said care groups and charities reported large increases in the number of working people seeking help.
Clifford Northey, from the Townsville Society of St Vincent de Paul, who gave evidence before the committee earlier this month, said the number of calls from people seeking help had increased from 3542 in 2001-02 to 6332 in 2002-03,
Senator Hutchins said the incidence of poverty in the working class had risen since the decentralisation of the industrial relations system gathered pace after the coalition government was re-elected in 1996.
“More people have been asking for handouts in the last four years,” he said.
The regional manager of Anglicare Illawarra, Michael Mitwollen, said about 10 per cent of people who sought help were employed.
“We refer to that 10 per cent group as the working poor,” he told a hearing in Wollongong on July 2.
“While we can be a positive relational face to caring for people in poverty, which government cannot be because government is government . . . we cannot afford to continually bail the government out of its economic and social responsibility to its citizens,” he said.
Senator Hutchins said the problem was exacerbated by the inability of low-paid workers to access anything more than safety-net adjustments to their wages.
“For cleaners, bar attendants and security guards, the bargaining power is not there.”
Senator Hutchins, whose first job was as a forklift driver, said he was “not a bleeding heart” but he was astounded by the difficulties being faced by many Australians.
“The lack of full-time employment is frightening,” he said.
The poverty inquiry, which will report in November, is being conducted by the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs made up of three Labor senators, two coalition senators and Meg Lees from the Australian Progressive Alliance.
It is likely the coalition senators will produce their own minority report as there are disagreements about the measures and causes of poverty.
The inquiry was called partly in response to the increasing number of Australians complaining about not being able to make ends meet.
The committee is considering a national summit on poverty to explore solutions.
Senator Hutchins said it was not necessarily just about handing out more money to the poor, but spending funds better.
“They want a hand up, not a hand-out,” he said.
The poverty inquiry is the first since the Henderson inquiry of the mid-1970s, when labour market arrangements were more centralised.