1,000 signatures reached
To: Malcolm Turnbull
We deserve a wage we can live on
My name is Imer. I’m a father of three, a cleaner, and one of the 2.3 million Australians trying to survive on the award minimum wage.
I work at a public housing estate in Melbourne. It’s not just hard work and dirty work, it’s can also be dangerous due to drugs and violence.
Despite all this, I only earn just $19.53 per hour.
All over Australia workers like me on the award minimum - cleaners, guards, home and aged care workers, early childhood educators and hospo workers are paid barely enough to get by.
I have three kids all living at home. Every day I have to make tough choices to make sure I can pay the bills. We don’t go out for meals, and holidays are off the table. I wish I could do these things with my kids - but we just can’t afford it.
We desperately need a raise, and we need to change the rules - because our award minimum wage system is broken.
I’m calling on Malcolm Turnbull to urgently raise the wage for me and hundreds of thousands of workers like me, and give us a seat at the table so workers like me have a real say, can bargain effectively, and can win fair pay, and jobs we can count on.
Why is this important?
Cleaning is hard, dirty work. From 7am in the morning, every day of the week I'm at work making sure the public housing estate I work at is clean and healthy for families who live there. I work long hours, I sometimes give up my weekends and make sacrifices every day to make sure I can pay the bills, but I’m still going backwards.
It used to be that we worked hard, and we could live a good life. But that reality has been snatched away as our wages go backwards and our voice at work is silenced.
We have to change the rules so we can all have a job we can count on, and a wage we can live on.