Ian Narev, outgoing chief executive officer of Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Credit:Brendon Thorne Of course it's tempting to pick on banks when everyone is picking on banks. Low hanging fruit. Or golden envelopes. But let me point out that while banking executives are rolling in it, the people who work for them are struggling. No bonuses. These are the banks which want to drive workers out of enterprise bargaining agreements, banks which adore the individual flexibility agreements. The national secretary of the Finance Sector Union, Julia Angrisano, tells me that those covered by enterprise bargaining agreements in banks have had increases of around three per cent a year. Which sounds good, right?

While average earnings have less than doubled since 2000, the pay of the CEOs of NAB and CBA has more than tripled. Credit:Karl Hilzinger "If you are a frontline teller, you are on somewhere between $45 and $50000 ... banking is the most profitable sector in our economy deriving such enormous profits but we have got a massive gap between entry level tellers and call centre operators compared to senior executives," says Angrisano. (Just a reminder, that's under one per cent of what their big bosses earn) Of course, she's not suggesting that a call centre operator should be paid what a CEO is paid – but the rate of increase for the lowest paid workers is unjust. While average earnings have less than doubled since 2000, the pay of the CEOs of NAB and CBA has more than tripled. Banks aren't the only proponents of greed. Let me draw your attention to another sector actively working against the people it employs. Fairfax Media reported earlier this week that the National Retail Association wants the country's lowest-paid workers to be denied any pay rise this year and in its submission asked the Fair Work Commission to give "full and genuine consideration" to withholding an increase altogether.

Let me repeat. The NRA says there should be an increase of zero to the minimum wage on July 1. I rang them to check their submission hadn't been misunderstood. None of its representatives had time to talk about this strange decision but instead issued a statement which said that in previous years the NRA had recommended wage rises higher than any other employer group. "Our recommendation this year reflects the very difficult nature of Australian retail right now, and is a direct result of the feedback we have received from our members. Many of them are confronting extraordinarily challenging trading conditions, and they are crying out for help." For crying out loud. Why is Australian retail struggling?

It's because disposable income has disappeared in the face of rising costs. There hasn't been a decent pay increase for years and even the Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe, at a dinner for business economists in Sydney last November, blamed employers for Australia's low growth in wages and said the focus for business was entirely about containing costs. Sadly, he didn't call "on the workers of the world united to rise up against the evil capitalists". Bit hard in a room full of business economists, I guess. I only wish that the people from the National Retail Association had been there to hear Lowe's message. It's ludicrous, unfair and pretty evil to try to prevent an overall increase in the minimum wage to keep your own costs down when everyone from Philip Lowe to your average bush economist knows that what we earn fuels consumer spending. Schoolkids still learn today how the feudal system operated, how much surplus value could be extracted from serfs, for the benefit of the lord of the manor. That's happening all over again. As branch secretary of Bernie Smith of the NSW and ACT SDA, the main retail union, says: "There's a record share of national income going to capital rather than to labour."

As he puts it, it's capital undermining its own business model. "It's almost like they don't understand how capitalism works." Here's a hint to members of the NRA. I note your organisation has a few testimonials of members on its site but they are all pretty old. In the meantime, if I represented either Kikki.K or Boost Juice, I'd be running a million miles before I was publicly associated with the people who are trying to make sure no-one can afford to buy your highly discretionary items. Jenna Price is a Fairfax columnist and an academic at the University of Technology Sydney.