Fed: LHMU wage claim will cause job losses, says AHA = 2

AAP General News (Australia)
12-05-2001
Fed: LHMU wage claim will cause job losses, says AHA = 2

LHMU assistant national secretary Tim Ferrari said the AHA and hotel publicans were
the ones who were out of touch with their employees, who were poorly paid.

Mr Ferrari rejected the claim of a vast downturn in the accommodation sector, saying
only Uluru, Darwin and perhaps Broome were in a downturn and generally the accommodation
sector was holding up well.

"The evidence doesn't support the AHA claim that there's a crisis in the industry.

It's just false and totally misleading," he said.

"The AHA and the hotel publicans it represents are out of touch with their employees,
who receive as little as $430.10 per week, or $11.31 per hour (gross), for a typical worker
in a pub or an accommodation hotel.

"Turnover in the industry is extremely high, into tens of millions of dollars in extra
costs for training because employees can't survive on the wages they're earning."

Mr Ferrari dismissed claims of possible further job losses as rubbish, saying the claim
would be decided in May next year, with any increase to become effective in June.

"Even if there was a temporary difficulty, which we dispute, then the increase, whatever
it may be, is well off."

The increase would also apply to employees in pubs whose owners were ripping out extraordinary
profits from poker machines, he said.

"I'd suggest the AHA are doomsayers, as per usual, and they're graspers for anything
they can extract out of the system to give their members an extra profit."

AAP dep/daw/ph

KEYWORD: HOSPITALITY 2 CANBERRA (REOPENS)

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