The rent doesn’t care about your birthday

Happy 18th Birthday! According to the law, you’re now an adult.

Oh, but sorry, you might not be paid like one.

This is the unfair reality that faces hundreds of thousands of workers across Australia, who are paid a fraction of full adult wages until they turn 21 years old.

But union members are campaigning for change; calling for an end to the pay disparity by abolishing junior rates for workers aged 18+ and reducing the pay gap for those under 18.

The case is on

Last year, the SDA – the union for retail and fast-food workers – lodged an application with the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to vary the minimum rates for junior employees in the General Retail Industry Award 2020, the Fast Food Industry Award 2020 and the Pharmacy Industry Award 2020.

Currently, each of these awards contain junior rates of pay for employees under the age of 21 (even when the job they’re doing is the same as someone over 21).

The specific rates differ slightly between each award, but generally, 20-year-olds earn 90%, 19-year-olds earn 80% and 18-year-olds earn 70% of the full award rates.

This leads to a huge wage gap: An 18-year-old has to work 50+ hours a week just to earn what someone over 21 earns working 38 hours!

The SDA’s application is seeking to scrap junior pay rates completely for workers aged 18+ and amend the pay rates for those under 18 to:

• 16 years and under = 50% of adult wage (currently 40-45%);
• 17 years = 75% of adult wage (currently 60%); and
• 18 years and over = 100% of adult wage

The first day of hearings before a full bench of the FWC kicked off in Melbourne on Monday, and will go for a for a few weeks, before the FWC makes its formal decision.

Industries like fast food, retail and hospitality have particularly high levels of young workers – so a win will mean pay rises for hundreds of thousands of workers! Plus, junior rates also apply in other awards, so it could pave the way for change in other industries.

No discount on life

The current sliding scale of junior wages is massively out of touch with the cost-of-living pressures on young workers.

With unaffordable housing one of the biggest issues facing young people today, how can we expect young workers to get by on a fraction of what their older workmates are earning?

Young workers’ bills and rent aren’t discounted; nor should their pay be.

This simple change won’t fix everything young people face, but it would send a clear message: 18 year-olds have the same social and legal responsibilities as other adults and deserve the same wage.

It’s time to grow up

Of course, business lobby groups are claiming that employers can’t afford this change and it will cost young workers their jobs.

Guess what: they said that women would be squeezed out of the workforce, when women began campaigning for equal pay fifty years ago… they weren’t. They also said that cutting penalty rates would create jobs. It didn’t.

The take away? Fair pay doesn’t kill jobs, but ill-founded employer scare campaigns can and do.

It’s time to give young workers a fair start to life, and it starts with scrapping “junior” wages for legal adults.