Trainees, apprentices and others on the very first steps of their career would suffer under some proposed changes, the ACTU says.

A report by the Australian Council of Trade Unions has found that the proposal to reduce Australia’s minimum wage would put many workers back down to 1998 levels of pay.

It says Australia would have a lower minimum rate of pay than UK and Canada in just two years if the idea was implemented.

Last week’s national Commission of Audit report included the concerning recommendation that the minimum wage be frozen for ten years.

In real terms, this means that minimum wage workers would earn less every year for the next decade.

Currently, the minimum wage is 56.3 per cent of the average Australian salary, but the government auditors say that should be reduced to 44 per cent.

The ACTU says that the current wage of $622.20 a week would be slashed to just $480 a week.

The union says the commission should not even have been reviewing wage and industrial relation conditions, and was suspiciously quiet about potential changes when the review was ongoing.

“This radical move represents the biggest attack o Australian wages since the Great Depression and would entrench a ‘US style’ working poor in Australia,” ACTU president Gen Kearney said.