Labor steps in to oppose proposal to overhaul penalty rates

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Federal Government is attempting to stop some of the country's major employers including Coles and Woolworths from getting rid of penalty rates. It wants the fair work commission to reject an application from the Australian retailers' association which the government argues will leave workers worse off.

Transcript

00:00Woolworths and Coles and several other retail chains have backed this approach or push from

00:08the Australian Retailers Association.

00:11What they want to see here is a variation to the award which covers retail employees

00:17to allow those earning $53,000 or more to trade off their penalty rates over time and

00:27also rostering and break entitlements in favour of a 25% pay rise.

00:34They argue that it's time for more flexibility and this would pave way for that and they

00:39say that the changes would only apply to those who opt in.

00:43This sort of thing is fairly unusual to take place when we're talking about an award.

00:51These discussions usually occur in the enterprise bargaining phase in those negotiations so

00:58there is a bit of a difference this time around.

01:02It's particularly significant given as we are all hearing and know all too well the

01:06election is just around the corner so the government is very keen here to step up its

01:11messaging and saying that it doesn't want to see any workers go backwards in terms of

01:17their entitlements and wages, particularly those lower paid workers.

01:22This proposal applies to those earning relatively low wages when we compare them to others and

01:29it's a significant portion of the population as well, tens of thousands specifically affected

01:35by this proposal.

01:37The workplace relations and employment minister Murray Watt says that even if they were to

01:46accept this trade-off it would leave this cohort of workers worse off overall.

01:53Even if these workers agreed to this individually with the 25% pay rise on offer they would

01:58still be being paid significantly below average weekly earnings.

02:04So the government says it's not fair to swap out these conditions.

02:09The Association and businesses are of the alternative position saying that there is

02:15a need for more flexibility.

02:17The government agrees on that point and we're going to hear more about this case with further

02:23hearings due in the next month or so.

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