An employee of a newsagent called me last week to ask about the $15 cash in hand they receive from their newsagent boss for their Sunday shift. They knew they were being underpaid and wanted to strike out at the newsagent. I told them to go to the authorities.
Besides underpaying this employee, and reportedly others, the newsagent was skipping on workers compensation, superannuation, possibly payroll tax and not maintaining accurate accounting records for when the business is sold.
While I am not thrilled to be paying an adult employee in my newsagency around $40 an hour for Sunday, it’s the law.
Newsagents not paying the award deserve what they get.
yes it is wrong but at some stage this employee agreed to this payment terms and now obviously they want more money . Staff have often asked to be paid cash for what ever reason the most common one is that they are getting some payment elsewhere and still want to earn money so they want it cash so there payments do not get cut back . It is a very risky thing to get in to .
Who knows what the situation is with only one side of the story.
Yes, exactly why I said the employee should go through more formal channels.
Shaun S, I think that sounds like a cop out. Often newsagent employees are young and not skilled negotiators and they could have felt under pressure to take it or leave it from the owner.
We now work Sunday’s ourselves due to the high Sunday rates. The result for the young is that they lose this opportunity to earn anything on one of the two days available to them. We try to make this up during the week but 3 hour minimums and student timetables make this difficult. Weekends should be more flexible to allow a person who cannot work on say a Monday, can work on a Sunday to earn a standard days pay. This is a realistic scenario in the retail industry. I’m not advocating underpaying or paying cash, simply treating each day of the week as a standard day in retail, hospitality and other 7 day industries. Overtime, meal allowances etc are there and should be adequate to compensate staff for excessive hours.
Brendan,
The minimum shift for students is now 1.5 hours (within a certain time period after school)
Thanks Jarryd, I was not sure if that had actually changed or just been proposed.
We employed a lass from another newsagency. She told me later that the other agency required her to work on her own, in the city, for a 9 hour day, no overtime, no meal breaks, no superannuation for $12 an hour. Having verified her account I assisted her to register a complaint with FWA. This other chap deserves whatever fine is coming.
I agree Brett. Employees who are ripped off need to act. The newsagents growly underpaying staff hurt all of us.
This is a genuine question that I have pondered for a while.Penalty rates exist to compensate for working hours deemed by the majority of society to be “unsociable”.
Let’s say that penalty rates are abolished.Have there been any studies undertaken to see what effect this would have on the available labour pool? IE, would people recognise that there is no financial advantage to working Sat/Sun, public holidays etc etc and decide that instead they will spend this time with friends, relaxing, going to see the kids play sport etc etc?
I have a feeling that this will happen, and that the only people willing to work these days will be for want of a better saying “the bottom of the barrel”, and anyone wanting to employ quality, capable people to work these days will end up paying well above the “standard” rate anyway.
Thoughts?
PM,
Maybe but I think not. Most people working Sat/Sun can ONLY work those days, students etc.
Here is the rub, they get a penalty rate for working those shifts. The question is, are they penalised?
Id be keen to see a 5 day any day system, where working more than the norm gets you a penalty rate.
#The PM. Your position is a theoretical one.
Our actual experience is based on employing 9 people at unsociable hours (eg from 2.30 am Mon through Sun). Please note the following:
These people want part time work.
They are happy to have a second job for a few hours per week.
They expect to be paid whatever the legally entitled rate is. And they are well informed about it because we provide them with the FWA 1800 number.
On public holidays they would prefer to have the hours at normal rates if it means we cut rosters due to PH penalties.
They are not the bottom of of the barrel. They are good people wanting to earn an extra quid (eg students, pensioners, young home owners wanting to get in front of the mortgage.)
Not everyone in this country falls in to a polarised dichotomy of unionists versus capitalists.
Most of us are just sensible people trying to use our own resources to stay a little bit ahead of the game.
Hi Ricky, it’s not a position, just my thoughts on human nature. I’m keen to hear other peoples thoughts and experiences on the subject.
A theoretical question though, at what point does someone working a second job at unsociable hours, being paid the appropriate rate, stay in a second job if penalty rates are removed without a commensurate reduction in the tax rate applied to second jobs?
My point is, everyone does their own cost/benefit analysis.
Should penalty rates be removed, how many existing employees, faced with the reality of less money for the same job they have previously done on penalty rates will decide that there is no point and move on? How many job seekers faced with the reality of being paid roughly the same money for working at 2am at the newsagency, or 5am at the servo or stacking shelves at the supermarket on Saturdays, will take the 2am option for any length of time?
My own highly scientific discussions (ie at the pub,playing golf,at friends houses, kids soccer games, etc) suggests that in this situation,people will gravitate to the more conventional hours.More importantly,I also know what option I’d take if I was in that position!
Again,just my thoughts.Now, I’m off to clean and de-ice some aeroplanes and chuck some bags.Cheers!
PM, interesting question. I expect that labour would go where the dollars are. Some retailers, to get better employees, would pay above award if there was no penalty for casual saturday and sunday hours. At least in this situation the market decides as happens during the week in many businesses.
Without penalty rates, more businesses would extend hours outside that of “normal trading” so more customers would be able to shop at more times. A great deal of employees do not want to work 9 to 5, these include students, parents, people who wish to work 2 jobs, or those that prefer to have the daytime to themselves and work at night or weekends. We are killing retail by forcing shops to not trade outside normal hours with excessive penalties.
luke, if shops were open longer because the wages costs was less, would consumers buy more?
if my shop grosses $2000 over 6 hours on a sunday currently, could i expect to take $4000 if we open for 12 hours?
i dont belive people are buying online (or getting the iPad AFR) just because the shops are closed.
from an employers point of view, yeah penality rates suck, but im not sure what the alternative is to keep everyone happy
good discussion
#The PM.
Point taken.
I also agree that people move on either because they’re no longer comfortable or because they have new and different needs.
In our case this happens 2 to 3 times per year.
What I should also have said is that when ever this occurs we have no problem finding replacements.
We run a line add 1 or 2 times per year and record all names and numbers of people inquiring. This gives us a data base to refer to when ever we need new staff.
My point is that many people are happy to to do this kind work for reasonable conditions.
They are very aware that a small business cannot afford to pay Public Holiday penalty rates. They are disappointed that we work ourselves on public holidays because we cannot pay the higher rates. They would prefer to accept a lower reasonable rate and not lose the hours.
My beef in all of this is that penalty rates are out of control. My perspective is that I am disappointed that there is no discussion about passing penalty rate costs onto consumers (who apparently are still highly expectant of full service on public holidays). A public holiday should be a public holiday. Lets try closing on these days and only providing service to those who are prepared to pay for it on cost recovery basis. Then we would at least know how the market values service on public holidays.