Government releases paper on FPAs - progress made but more work needed

The Government has today released its discussion paper ‘ Designing a Fair Pay Agreements System’ providing detail of what proposed law for Fair Pay Agreements (FPAs) could include.

CTU President Richard Wagstaff comments, "We are pleased to see that the Government is clearly committed to improving the lives of working people with progress towards introducing Fair Pay Agreements. There are good things in this Discussion Paper, but there are certainly areas which need further work to be ironed out. Addressing these issues will be the focus for working people and their unions over the next six weeks during the consultation process."

"The CTU released our own paper detailing what fair FPAs need to include earlier this week. We will of course be measuring what the Government has proposed against that. Fair Pay Agreements must be fair for working people. "

"At first glance we know that there are issues which need to addressed. There are issues around initiation, market impact testing, representation of working people."

"We are pleased to see the confirmation of some of the Working Groups recommendations - the coverage of contractors, 10% of employees in an industry or sector supporting FPAs. We are also pleased to see further work on the practical application of the Working Group recommendations in principle like the acceptance of a simple majority of voters in order to ratify."

"The discussion paper recognises that wages need to be lifted and economic system is failing workers at the moment and that FPAs will help fix this, particularly for low and middle income working people," Wagstaff said.

ENDS

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