The front page story in The New York Times today (Sunday here in New York) is about Apple and the wages paid to its retail employees. US$11.91 an hour is what Apple store employees get paid. That’s close to half what we pay retail employees in Australia. What makes the rate difference even more extraordinary is the difference in margin between what is sold in an Apple store and a newsagency. The difference on weekends, taking into account penalty rates, is extraordinary.
Liberal and Labour politicians in Australia say we as a country need to be competitive on the world stage. To achieve that we need a competitive cost base.
No, I am not calling for wage rates equal to the poverty line wage rates of retail in the US (see the PBS report on Walmart pay rates), I am calling for, at the very least, a cut in what we call penalty rates when there is no penalty involved.
Read the Apple story, it’s fascinating what they get away with in the US.
A funny thing happened in the last week. Microsoft announced their Surface tablet computer and the tech press went ga ga over it. They were really pulling for a competitor to the iPad, even from Microsoft a whipping boy for the last while. The love that Apple has had for the last 5 years is really starting to cool as people realise behind the cool exterior they are just another large multinational with their own agenda’s.
I’m surprised too, Australian wages are high, even compared to NZ.
When I was in the US a few years ago a can of Coke at 7-11 was 69 cents or 2 for $1. My local 7-11 here a can is $2.80.
This guy works at the Apple store in Salem where the average house price is $195,000.
Everything is relative. Apples for apples.
Penalty rates are already an issue but will become more of an issue with us in the
Asian region where wages are traditionally
much lower than ours.
I cannot understand why we as Australians don’t understand that this is
the real reason why companies (Aust) have gone offshore to produce their goods.
The thing that hasn’t been understood is
that to compete we have to abolish the
penalty rates.
I work every Saturday and every Sunday
because our industry cannot support these rates but I have never known our
industry to lobby governments on our
behalf (which is what they are paid to do)
The Libs will bend to the big end of town and Labour will support the workers to the “bitter” (and it might be bitter) end
but we in SME’s are very very underrepresented on these issues and our
voices (though there are many of us) are
largely unheard.
The stupid thing is that if wages were uniform over 7 days we could/would employ more people and the economy would improve because of this.
I don’t understand why this is not discussed and argued about more than it
apparently is now.
I think we need to be part of a calm, considered discussion with politicians about fairness in the globalised whorl they have connected us to. This is not an issue to be shrill about and I am not advocating a return to Workchoices. Fixing weekend rates would boost an excellent economic boost.
Can you please explain your weekend rates?