Retailers Hancuffed by Out Dated Laws

This had been a bug bear of mine for a long time , having worked with Retailers large and small for many years now, and the recent productivity report into the Retail Industry has served to, hopefully, bring the problem into the spotlight.

The issue I am talking about is the wage rates that Retailers must pay staff who work weekends and late nights.Staff who work Sundays, for example, get paid at double time rates, whilst their colleagues that do exactly the same thing on a Monday to Friday get paid at normal rates.This is crazy.

This system is a legacy from the times of , literally, 100 years ago when society was entiely different when it came to the question of the attitudes of many things, including, for this discussion the question of working on weekends.

There are many differences between the life and times of today and those when these laws were drafted.Three important ones stick out.Firstly, it was highly unusual for someone to have to work on a weekend and if they did then it was fair enough that the employee be rewarded for having to do so.Secondly, and the points are entwined, most businesses were not open on a weekend anyway.

Things are different now.I can still remember in NSW when I was young when the shops would close at midday on Saturday and were never open on Sundays.Nowadays, not only do the public expect shops to be open on weekends, but Landlords in large shopping centres make it a condition of the lease that Retailers do so!

The third point is that many employees are happy to work on a Sunday and it is not an inconvenience for the vast majority of them.Many employees in the Retail Industry work part time and either have several jobs , or are students.Many of the them only have time to work on weekends because of the committments during the week.

So where does all of this leave us?Retailers are copping it from all angles.They are contending with the rise of the online retailers, the dollar makes overseas products much cheaper, and because they are required to open on weekends, they are being hit with unstainable wage costs into the bargain.

The Government must act immediately on this.Penalty rates must be removed, apart from work on public holidays.Allowances such as meal breaks and clothing must be reformed, as they are currently open to wide abuse.

Bill Shorten indicated, and I am paraphasing here, that people should not delude themselves by thinking that axing penalty rates will fix the problems Retailers are having.Perhaps not, but it is a significant part of the problem and will go a long way to assisting retailers to keep their doors open, and that has got to be a good thing for all concerned.