Penalty rate cut for Australian workers

Full- and part-time hospitality workers will have their Sunday rates reduced from 175 to 150 percent; for fast food workers, it will drop from 150 to 125 percent; in retail, it will drop from 200 to 150 percent for full- and part-time workers, from 200 to 175 percent for casuals.

Today the Australian Fair Work Commission announced that Sunday penalty rates in a number of industries would be slashed.

The decision represents the culmination of more than two years of work by Australian Business Lawyers & Advisors (ABLA) who represented the Australian Chamber, NSW Business Chamber and Australian Business Industrial.

‘The last thing you want is to force them [staff] to come in – otherwise you’re going to have to fire them, ‘ Mr Kazzi said. Unlike the commission, they haven’t sat through the evidence presented, yet no doubt will be making all sorts of threats to introduce legislation making this decision irrelevant. With or without penalty rates, Australian retail workers remain enjoy generous wages and conditions.

‘There should be something extra [for workers]’.

The alternate view from workers and unions was that Sunday penalty rates were an appropriate reward for the (usually young) employees who put up their hands to work unsociable hours.

But Ms Kowalka added the she “didn’t really know” what the future had in store.

Chris Ottey, 23, is a retail employee at EB Games and said it would be a loss for people with other weekday commitments, like study, who use weekend rates to stay afloat.

“This is a bad day for workers … rules must be changed”.

“We already open on Sunday”.

In a workforce spanning seven states and territories, 7.6 million square kilometres and nearly 12 million workers, our one-size-fits-all approach of a single regulator making national wage decisions, like penalty rates, belongs in the era of the horse and buggy.

The pharmacy award rates applying between the hours of 7am and 9pm will go from 200% to 150% for full and part-time workers, and from 200% to 175% for casual employees.

For the Restaurant Award, Sunday penalty rates are unchanged but the public holiday rates are cut.

Across the country, businesses are staffed by casual or part-time workers in retail, fast food, admin.

Pharmacy Award: for full-time and part-time employees from 250% to 225%, and for casual employees from 275% to 250%. Other industries will not be affected. But employers welcomed the cut and said it would help create employment.

“It definitely opens up the possibility of opening more hours”, Mr Bird said.

“We call on the Malcolm Turnbull and all political parties to immediately act to protect working people from any cuts to their take home pay”, Szakacs said.

“A lot of personal family times happens on the weekends and there are a lot people on the minimum wage who are giving up that valuable time”. The retail industry made a very healthy operating profit a year ago. “People will have to look for options, look for means to make up for that cut they’ve just received”. “I have never seen an argument which would justify wholesale pay cuts for the lowest paid workers in Australia”, he said.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten took to Twitter to criticise the move.

Fair Work Commission president Iain Ross.