Preserve penalty rates to protect Victorian workers: state government

Date
    March 14, 2016
    The Age

Penalty rates should be preserved to protect Victoria's "most vulnerable" workers, the state government has told the national workplace tribunal.   

The Fair Work Commission is holding a review into penalty rates in the hospitality and retail sectors.

A broad range of groups have made submissions to the review, ranging from churches and unions to industry associations and politicians.

The Victorian government's submission argues penalty rates have been a long-standing feature of Australia's industrial relations system.


"Reducing penalty rates will erode those protections with a particularly negative impact on the lowest paid Victorian workers," it said.

Some workers relied on penalty rates to meet basic household expenses, the submission said.

"Penalty rates remain an important way to compensate workers for the social and health impacts of working unsociable hours during weekends, public holidays and on shift work."

The submission said penalty rates can be a smaller impost on businesses than other expenses including council rates, commercial rent and taxes.

The Australian Industry Group is among those seeking changes to awards, including the reduction but not abolition of Sunday penalty rates.

The government's submission said there was no "convincing evidence" that reducing penalty rates would create more jobs but it did concede lower penalty rates may lead to some businesses extending their opening hours.

"The Victorian government submits that a change to penalty rates, while providing some financial benefit to business, comes at too high a price," it said.

The Fair Work Commission review comes after a separate Productivity Commission report recommended Sunday rates be reduced to match Saturday rates.

Industrial Relations Minister Natalie Hutchins said many Victorians relied on penalty rates to "make ends meet".

"Retail, hospitality and accommodation workers should not be treated any less favourably than workers in other sectors, creating an unfair, two-tier system of entitlements and an under-class of Australian workers," she said.

Of course a LABOR state government is going to be all for screwing business owners over with penalty rates. It's a rather apt name - they penalise business owners who want to employ the unemployed.

greggerypeccary wrote on Mar 14^th, 2016 at 8:38am:

stunspore wrote on Mar 14^th, 2016 at 9:17am:


They know it will be political suicide so the Libs will continue to do what they have done for nearly 3 years, absolutely nothing.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Mar 14^th, 2016 at 9:59am:

No it isn’t.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Mar 14^th, 2016 at 9:59am:

Neither were the wages.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Mar 14^th, 2016 at 9:59am:

Nobody is asking for more money because penalty rates are in place.  Is that too hard for you to understand?

Armchair_Politician wrote on Mar 14^th, 2016 at 9:59am:

Following on from that amazing piece of logic (and I’m using the word loosely) one would then expect that if you cut everyone’s wages by half, which is probably something that would appeal to the likes of you, you would then double employment.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Mar 14^th, 2016 at 9:59am:

There is no crisis.

Wolseley wrote on Mar 14^th, 2016 at 10:40am:

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/labour-day-why-you-have-the-day-off-20160311-g...

continual erosion of working conditions.  All that was fought/negotiated to be lost.

So business proprietors can’t afford to pay workers more on weekends?  If you go about with your eyes open, it is blindingly obvious that shops, cafes, restaurants and tourist attractions are busiest on weekend and public holidays.  Penalty rates, which are so named because they are a penalty on employers for requiring staff to work anti-social hours, have been around for about a century, and it seems odd that they are only now being seen as a problem.

Charging a weekend or public holiday surcharge on drinks and meals is a pretty widespread practice and has been for decades, although there was a short period recently where a surcharge became technically illegal due to a change in the wording of the relevant legislation, but that was changed and the status quo was reinstated.

Those of us who work odd times so the rest of us can relax should be adequately compensated.

In any case, a business proprietor who opens a restaurant and cafe does so in the full knowledge that, if he wants to operate at night, weekends and public holidays, he will have to pay his staff penalty rates.  If he has any brains, he will factor this into his business plan.  Any cafe or restaurant proprietor who says that penalty rates are threatening his business is either lying, because he wants to make more profit for no more expense, or he hasn’t done a proper business plan because he has failed to factor in all his expenses.  In other words, it is nothing to do with his staff, the problems are due to inadequate or maybe even non-existent planning.  How many businesses fail in their first year or so of operation due to lack of planning?  Aside from a few greedy ones who want more profit and wouldn’t hire any more staff anyway, it is those who don’t think through their business plans who seem to be the biggest critics of penalty rates.  Their businesses collapse in a sea of red ink and, instead of conceding that their own incompetence was the reason, the try to shift the blame to their workers, for wanting a fair living wage.

And the hourly wages in the hospitality and retail sectors are fairly low in comparison to areas that offer employment 9 to 5, five days a week. This is because these people earn above their basic salary due to penalty rates.  Their award rates take to account their probable income from penalty rates.  Remove the penalty rates and a lot of these people would be struggling to survive.