WAGE earners are receiving an ever-smaller share from the distribution of national income, SEK trade union said yesterday.
The union said that compared to a 45.8 per cent share of national income produced in 2003, wage earners last year only received 44.7 per cent of the total.
SEK called the situation grossly unfair, considering how well the economy was doing and said the union would seek higher wages for its members when collective agreements come up for renewal at the end of the year.
The union said its claims would be based on productivity, given the satisfactory growth rate of the economy, and low unemployment and inflation
Official figures showed a steady rate of decline in the share of national income going to wage earners, SEK said. Between 2003 and 2004, the figure decreased from 45.8 per cent to 45.2 per cent. In 2005, it fell to 45 per cent and last year to 44.7 per cent
“Logically, the opposite should be happening,” the union said. “After all, wage earners comprise 76.5 per cent of the labour force.”
Economist Costas Apostolides said the figures basically meant that more profits were going to business, while employees were getting a lower and lower share. “Profits are increasing faster than wage income on a worldwide scale,” he said.
Apostolides said the phenomenon was partly due to globalisation and the growth of global monopolies that could dictate the labour market.
Cheaper immigrant labour would also force parts of the national labour forces to work for less or not work at all.
Unions were also losing power in other countries, Apostolides said, adding that eventually this would become an issue in Cyprus.
Outsourcing, and outsourcing to other countries with cheap labour, which increases profits for global companies was also part of the phenomenon, the economist said.
He cited private security firms where wages were often low as an example, saying they could be hired to do many police jobs at a cheaper rate than hiring a fully-fledged officer.
Yesterday, to mark international poverty day, AKEL spokesman Andros Kyprianou said the rate of poverty in Cyprus was 9.0 per cent, most of which was found among pensioners, large families, some rural households and single parent families.
All over the world, a child dies every three seconds as a result of poverty while 1.2 billion people live on around one dollar a day and 2.5 billion on two dollars a day. Even in the EU, Kyprianou said, 50 million people live under the poverty line.
