Excellent news. Australia has an enormous opportunity to rebuild local manufacturing through renewable energy tech. Government must play a central role seizing this opportunity & ensuring workers and communities share in the rewards. A thread🧵abc.net.au/news/2024-04-1…

Inflation hurts. But the ABS's official 🇦🇺CPI doesn't include higher interest on mortgages. If you do, the *true* cost of living is much higher--especially for workers. And the RBA is actually making that worse. Jim Stanford explains in The New Daily: thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2024/0…

Australia is confronted by a climate & jobs crisis

Today The AMWU and CANA launched our report into renewable energy opportunities - showing the pathway to climate action & job creation

Australia can be more than a quarry, a farm & a nice place to visit

We can make it here

Great overview from Sezen Bakan for The New Daily on all the moving parts involved in planning strong employment transitions as part of the energy transition: thenewdaily.com.au/life/2024/04/0…. I stress we need training, transition supports, and high quality, stable jobs to move into.

The Right to Disconnect has attracted criticism from Peter Dutton and business groups, who say it's bad for productivity.

They may need to learn some basic maths, because they couldn't be more wrong.

Centre for Future Work Director Dr Jim Stanford explains. #auspol

See our full Centre for Future Work report on corporate profits in Canada since the pandemic, and how record profits (biggest of all in the petroleum sector) have been the leading factor in inflation and hence high interest rates: centreforfuturework.ca/wp-content/upl…. /6

Labour researchers around the world will want to keep October 24-26 2024 free: for the next CRIMT international conference at U de Montreal: crimt.net/en/crimt2024/. This is SUCH a unique international gathering of labour scholarship and activism.

Had a great chance this week to meet in Sydney with (almost) all our fine ⁦Centre for Future Work team⁩ L to R ⁦Greg Jericho⁩ ⁦Fiona Macdonald⁩ ⁦Charlie Joyce⁩ me & ⁦Lisa Heap⁩, with ⁦David Peetz⁩ on the screen! Thank you all for your outstanding research! 🙏🏼

The latest data for enterprise agreements shows that the private-sector avge annual wage growth for EBAs approved in the December quarter of 2023 fell from 4.0% to 3.8%.
So much for the wage breakout... #OffTheCharts Greg Jericho
australiainstitute.org.au/post/wage-grow…

Rapid fall in job vacancies (down 6.1% in the last quarter) is more evidence of softening in 🇦🇺's labour market. There are 1.5 officially unemployed for each vacancy; over 4 underutilized (un- + under-employed) for each vacancy. RBA must move quickly to prevent further hardship.

My column on efforts by business groups to have the minimum wage increase by less than inflation

The push against wage rises has begun again – it’s an argument for Australia’s poorest workers to become poorer theguardian.com/business/grogo…

'ACCI and other employer groups never want minimum or award wages to rise by more than inflation and it is about time they were honest and admit they are arguing for the poorest workers in Australia to not just stay poor but become poorer.' Greg Jericho
theguardian.com/business/grogo…

What an outstanding rebuttal by ⁦Greg Jericho⁩ for ⁦Guardian Australia⁩ of the tiresome and predictable complaints from employers about the minimum wage. CEOs should look in the mirror to find the culprit for inflation, not blame low-wage workers. theguardian.com/business/grogo…

Here's a great explainer podcast from Rania Yallop for SBS News on the Fair Work Commission's annual wage review: sbs.com.au/news/podcast-e…. Our Jim Stanford explains why protecting the living standards of the lowest-wage workers poses no threat of future inflation.

What a treat to meet with Gareth Bryant and his super bright class to discuss neoclassical economics: where and why it came from, what's wrong with it, and how to replace it. University of Sydney's Political-Economy program is globally unique and a centre for outstanding scholarship.

The proposed 5% increase in minimum & Award rates, even if FULLY passed on, would lift economy-wide prices by 0.3% at most. Even better, could be absorbed by business with a 1% decline in their record profits. Our full report: futurework.org.au/report/the-irr…. Low-wage workers need this!

BREAKING: New Australia Institute Report has found that 'There has been no significant correlation between rises in the minimum wage and inflation since 1997'