Queensland Rail put an offer to the Fair Work commission on Monday night that included an 8 per cent pay rise over three years, and a cost-of-living adjustment if inflation goes above that rate.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-01/qld-rail-disruption-from-may-5/106629746

is 2.6% per year increase in pay not good enough? i guess there’s not a lot of train operators out there that you can get a good market rate for

[–] vagrancyand@sh.itjust.works 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

What's important to remember is that inflation is always a pay cut. If you do not get a raise above inflation every year, you are making less money each year. Inflation over the last 3 years in Australia was 2.3%; however inflation this year has sharply risen and is on track for 4% by the end of the year (assuming the Iran war ends today and we magically fix the results of the war literally today, neither of which will happen so we can assume it'll be even higher).

This deal, at most, gives a 0.3% pay raise per year. At worst it is a 0% pay raise per year when adjusting for inflation, assuming they actually calculate their cost of living adjustment properly.

So really, the government says these people deserve no raise whatsoever, or no raise that will make any difference. While the union is saying they're valuable enough that they should be paid more, and not just not lose their pay.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

has there ever been an agreement to increase wages in line with cpi? how are previous agreements structured?

in my industry (IT) you’re paid the market rate, if inflation goes up but the demand for your job goes down so does your likelihood of being given a salary increase at all

on top of this if your job is made significantly easier or there’s a flood of supply then you may end up looking for another job and accepting a lower wage

So really, the government says these people deserve no raise whatsoever, or no raise that will make any difference.

i guess it depends on how much they are making now and the connection to cpi

The largest contributors to annual inflation were Housing (+6.5%), Transport (+8.9%)

If for example the employee owns their own home and drives an EV then their personal cpi has a negligible hit

but i guess the main thing would be they need to argue what the market is willing to pay vs what the union is asking for (which they didn’t supply for some reason)