Kudos to Senator Nick Xenophon for the private member’s bill he is introducing to reduce the burden of penalty rates on small businesses like newsagents. The Sydney Morning Herald has a good report on this.
Check out Nick Xenophon’s media release on this. The release includes this:
Under Senator Xenophon’s Fair Work Amendment (Small Business – Penalty Rates Exemption) Bill 2012, penalty rates would still be payable, but only where an employee has worked more than 38 hours in a seven day period or worked more than 10 hours each day. This exemption would only apply to businesses which employ fewer than 20 full time equivalent employees.
Inside Retailing published a report about this yesterday with the convenience store association supports the move.
You can email Nick Xenophon at: senator.xenophon@aph.gov.au. If you agree with what he’s doing show your support. I have.
Next, ask if your local politician will support the move. As Michelle Grattan writes in the SMH, this will be a challenge for the coalition parties.
Email sent. Hope he gets it thru.
Oakshott has a similar one called 5 day anyday – basically means a worker does 5 days a week, any days, without penalty. Nick X’s is also good, something certainly needs to change
Same as Vicki
ditto vicki and jono
And another
Good, the more support he gets for this the better.
done
Done
I am a permanent employee, working as a Contract Project Manager in Local
Government and am currently earning around 89,000 per year.
I am married and have a young son in pre school. Currently we are a one income
family as my wife is undertaking further study to get her qualifications recognised in Australia.
Whilst I have now paid off my townhouse . I remember all the years I went without to achieve that end. A significant way in which I was able to afford a place to call our own,
was by working long hours , nights and on weekends.
I am still involved in night road and emergency works and if penalty rates were
abolished I believe that many organisations would have great trouble getting people like myself to undertake such work.
Whilst my hourly rate would not change as I am a contractor on a fixed rate that of
many of my co-workers would be reduced significantly. Contractors like myself
understand better than most what it is like to not get paid penalty rates or recieve sick leave. And if we work overtime and only get time in lieu. We know just how bad the consequences for
familes would be if Parliament were to abolish penalty rates for weekend and shift
work.
If the committee really want to remove penalty payments for workers undertaking
weekend work (and other shift work) and not allow people to be given any reward for the additional time away from their families then they will find that employers particularly those in the service and construction industries will find it increasingly difficult to get quality
people to do such work.
My weekends are important to me because they are the only quality time I spend with my family. Australian’s already work some of the longest hours in the industrialised world and we need our weekends to be protected. I also believe that the move to abolish penalty rates would be extremely detrimental to society and I urge the committee to keep penalty rates. It is important to realise that during the last 30 years
or so of deregulation in this country has largely been done at the expense of Australian families. I find it is no coincidence that rates of divorce and other forms of social breakdown has also accelerated during this same period.
Politicians of all complexions should understand that this issue makes the furore that the former Government faced over workchoices a walk in the garden. Quite frankly If people like Senator Xenophon want to destroy Australia’s weekend culture then they
should be prepared to take responsibility for the consequences and face getting kicked out of office. Thi bill will make Australia an even more unfair and unjust society than it already is at present.
Vance we live in a 24/7 world and compete with businesses that have costs on the basis of this world. To saddle small retailers with old word costs makes us less competitive.
To saddle ALL BUSINESS with olde-worlde costs makes us less competitive. Vance, my weekends are important to me too, as are they are to all the folk you interact with over your weekend : the supermarket junior, the take-away food kids, the sport club kiosk lady, the movie theatre usherette, the guy behind the bar at your pub, the person who cooks your Sunday brunch etc etc. Are you suggesting that ALL commerce be shut down on weekends, or just your bit of business?
if penalty rates dont change one of my staff will have all the time they need with their families because they wont have a job
The reality is that our weekend part timers are happy to work for standard rates. They would prefer to have the hours at standard rates, rather than have us cut their hours because we can’t afford to pay them penalties. Our ability to pay them is entirely dependent on the unforecastable revenue we will generate during the specific time they are working.
Vance’s view is very narrow. On the one hand he is doing his second job as a secondary source of income with a clear goal to pay off his house. Good on him. I admire him for that. He believes he has sacrificed his time to achieve a greater goal. Not everyone who works weekends has the same sense of sacrifice. On the other hand his situation is not relevant to retail. The organisation paying him is working on a fixed quotation for the work they are doing. They know before they engage the people exactly how much the job is going to earn for them. Therefore they can factor in the penalty rate into a user pays scenario.
This debate will get very unbalanced unless we can compare apples with apples.
This week in NSW we had a public holiday on the Monday.
My store is located a suburb away from a beautiful part of our region known for its beautiful lake and the vast array of cafe’s and restaurants situated along a waterfront / esplanade overlooking this lake.
Unfortunately for the public, and particularly tourists, this whole shopping area of restaurants and cafe’s were CLOSED for the day.
Why? Penalty rates.
Many industries DO NOT work Public Holiday’s or weekends.
So, whilst Vance has made some valid points, he is more than likely the type of person to be up in arms over those cafe’s and restaurants NOT being open on a public holiday. There is two sides to every argument.
The reality is 100’s of casual hospitality staff in that area were forced to have a day off work and therefore without pay because of the penalty rates in this situation.
I myself work the public holidays and many sunday’s therefore making my casual staff who may normally be rostered on that day take the day off.
If the penalty rates were abolished those restaurants and Cafe’s would be open. I would employ more staff, give more hours to staff who want more and be able to enjoy more weekends with my family too!
Spot on Amanda!
I’ve just come from a meeting with a Senator (more on that tomorrow) and now realise a flaw in the Xenophon bill. What if it did pass, which it won’t, and we could pay less and the big businesses on either side of us could not. Market forces would see us paying what we pay today.
If there is a shift in penalty rates it needs to apply to all.