00:00This case is about junior pay rates that cover employees in three really big industries.
00:09So retail, fast food and pharmacies.
00:11Together they employ more than half a million young people
00:14and for many they are the first step on the workplace ladder.
00:17Now what happens is everyone who is below the age of 21
00:21and covered by these awards that are signed up to by major brands
00:25including Coles and Woolworths and McDonald's and your big fast food chains.
00:30For every year that they are lower than 21 they get a discount applied to their wage.
00:34So a 20 year old gets paid 90% of the adult wage,
00:37a 19 year old gets paid 80% and an 18 year old gets paid 70%.
00:42This case was heard in the Fair Work Commission for a couple of months at the end of last year.
00:47We're expecting the decision imminently and what it is seeking to do
00:51from the union that brought it is to get rid of this discount.
00:55They argue essentially that workers are workers.
00:59These are adults, they don't get a discount at the petrol pump.
01:01They don't get a discount in any other facet of their life.
01:04So why should they be paid less when they are at work?
01:07So that is junior pay rates across these really big industries
01:10that cover almost half a million young people.
01:13So that's the key argument, Dan, from the unions and the workers' side.
01:17What are businesses saying?
01:19Well, businesses are very concerned about this.
01:21They describe it as totemic.
01:22That's because some of these large employers really are that first step into the workforce.
01:29Woolworths, for example, employs about one in eight people was their first job.
01:33So about one in eight Australians, their first job was at that supermarket in that sector.
01:38So it's a really complex argument about the amount of value that people are able to bring to work
01:46when they are still learning and being trained or being well-supervised,
01:51as opposed to older workers who bring life experience or perhaps experience at other employers as well.
01:56Now, leading essentially the counterfactual is the Australian Industry Group,
02:01and their chief executive, Innes Willicks, talked about his fears of what might happen to employment
02:05if the union bid, in this case, is successful.
02:08Increased wages will push up prices over time.
02:12It becomes a terrible circumstance for workers and for the economy as a whole
02:18because all it does is drive up inflationary pressures,
02:21pressures on interest rates, pressures on costs,
02:24and in the end we all just end up paying more.
02:27We will find a decision imminently from the Fair Work Commission.
02:30Daniel Ziffer, thank you.
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