Julia Gillard says that only the Labor party will protect workers and keep in place penalty rates in place and protected with new laws.
Tony Abbott says the government should be replaced immediately yet he is offering no insight into how he would govern other than some slogans. He appears unwilling to pursue an equitable solution on the issue of penalty rates.
I am all for penalty rates where working on a particular day or at a particular time is a penalty. Like today, Good Friday – penalty rates should apply. Or even Easter Sunday.
Regular Saturdays and Sundays, they should attract no penalty rate. This is what the politicians need to address. If Tony Abbott did address this he could expect more small business support. As it stands, there appears to be no real difference between the parties on what is a very important issue.
In the meantime, we are stuck with paying around $40 an hour for what is reasonably unskilled work at a time that suits those taking the weekend work.
My frustration is compounded by the knowledge that in the US, retailers pay under $10 an hour any day of the week. I don’t want to change the base to that level. In fact, I don’t want to change the base at all. What I do want is weekend penalty rates abolished. Such a move would be socially responsible.
And VANA and nana and ANF fail us on this. Pathetic.
not sure what you expect from the associations on this, the fault lies with the Gillard govt and her union backers. I see they are not saying much against the unions claim for a $30 week pay rise except to say they are the party that believes in a fairs day pay or a fairs day work. They will do their masters (union) dirty work before we can kick them out of office in sept
rick,
Bill Shorten (Employment Minister) has already been quoted saying the following:
“I believe that the union claim is at the high end”
“I think $30 is higher than we would land at”
“I think that somewhere less than $30 will be the outcome”
It also appears you are unaware that wage increases are decided on by Fair Work, not the government.
I don’t problem with penalty rates. They exist to create some, albeit blurry, definition of the weekend.
I see the problem as one in which penalty rates are disproportionate to their function. There is no logical reason that Saturday and Sunday have different penalty rates. Both are days of the weekend – one has no more significance, in modern Australia, than the other. There is no logical reason why Sunday rates incur a 100% penalty. The rate is a political mishap of the award modernisation process in which existing state awards were merged into one federal award. So that no employee ended up worse off, the most generous parts were taken from each state award with no consideration given to how those entitlements affected other sections of each award. What resulted was a federal award that was skewed without any compromise for the increase benefits received by most employees.
Jarryd there’s not much difference, in terms of quantum, in what we are saying. I do think my argument is easier to make but I doubt we have politicians with the commitment and understanding to create a fairer system.
In a time where mon-fri 9-5 no longer represents the bulk of workers I cannot see how anything outside these hours should warrent penalty rates, but with the union backed govt and a scared liberal party on IR this will never change.
People want to spend money when they are not at work and sometimes this means sundays, sometimes on a pub holiday, but at times this loses the retailer money just to be open. If You buy something on a website today it will not ship until tuesday but people feel they can operate 7 days 24hrs.
My view is if people want to work give them a job but why pay extra on certain days when the weekend is no longer Sat or sunday and public holidays no longer stand for anything. If people want the day off then take it off
All of the above is why newsagents must
work in their businesses all weekend.
We don’t like it but Sunday doesn’t pay its
way (I am thinking of closing) even though we are in a shopping centre.
Half of the shops in the centre don’t open because Sunday is not mandated as an opening day so shopkeepers (rightly or
wrongly) want a day off and they take Sunday because it doesn’t pay its way.
We always used to say that the end of the year’s turnover was what counted but I think that story has gone out with button-up boots.
We’ve recently moved to smaller premises
and we are seeing cards, mags and lotto and stationery holding up well but gifts have crashed this year and we are not sure why. Is it the gifts we’ve put in (always very acceptable until now apparently) or is it that people are becoming more aware of their spending patterns and deciding to buy more at the
bargain basement types of stores (none in our centre).
Ticketek tells a different story – people have ALWAYS got the money for a show
or a concert and that amazes me.
I put it down to younger people wanting instant gratification while my age group (old) understand delayed gratification (in my case very very delayed)
It is a vexed question.
I’d like to see it discussed here