Abbott cuts cleaners wages by approx $200wk

Abbott's chucking out a whole bunch of red tape this week. 50,000 pages of it. 

Meh, so what you say? How boring. Look there's a chance of a plane being over there somewhere.....

Well if you're a cleaner employed by the Australian commonwealth gov, I'm afraid you're going to be in for a rude shock. See, although it sounds like a marvelous idea to "cut red tape" (3 word slogan anyone?) some of what's going out in that red tape includes the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines from July first. Just like that. Chuck them all in the bin. Better off without all that red tape.

Those guidelines ensure the cleaners are employed above the award rate through collective bargaining agreements. Well, Abbott's tossing them all to the curb.

Some of the country's lowest-paid workers could lose almost a quarter of their weekly wages under changes quietly introduced by the Abbott government. 

Thousands of workers will be hit by the changes, which will strip between $172 and $225 a week from the pockets of full-time contract cleaners who work in government buildings. 

The changes are among the 9500 regulations to go under Prime Minister Tony Abbott's red tape ''repeal day'' on Wednesday. 

Buried in more than 50,000 pages of regulations and acts of parliaments to be scrapped is the revelation the government will abolish the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines for cleaners employed on government contracts from July 1. 

The regulations are a form of collective bargaining introduced by Labor that lift the wages of workers hired by businesses that win government cleaning contracts, by between $4.53 and $5.93 an hour above the minimum wage. This brings their weekly wage from $664 to $836 for a 38-hour week for level 1, and from $724 to $950 a week for level 3 workers. 

United Voice, the union representing cleaners, would not comment on the changes before consulting its members. It is understood the union was not aware of the changes and is trying to negotiate with contractors and the government in an attempt to mitigate the effects on its members. Read more

Just like that. A stroke of a pen, or in this case a massive great lob into the paper recycling bin (50,000 sheets of paper is about 20 or so A4 boxes worth).