Boxing Day public holiday plan triggers penalty rates row
Steven Marshall and Rob Lucas are being labelled Christmas grinches over their Boxing Day trading plan’s hit to pay packets.
SA News
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South Australia’s Premier and Treasurer face being labelled Christmas grinches as plans progress for extended trading hours over the festive season.
The union representing retail and fast food workers wants Boxing Day to be declared a public holiday on the Saturday it falls on – in addition to the Monday that it automatically gets shifted to when it lands on the weekend.
For an adult retail worker the decision would make $21.40 difference per hour – or $170 for the eight hour shift.
It would mean hundreds of retail, supermarket and warehouse workers would get the public holiday penalty rates on both the Saturday and Monday following Christmas.
But it would also come with additional costs for their employers.
Hourly rates are calculated at 2.25 times for public holidays compared to 1.25 times for Saturdays.
Treasurer Rob Lucas is still working through the details but has hinted that he will not be declaring Boxing Day a public holiday for the Saturday.
“We have gone out to consultation and at this stage I have not made any decision,” Mr Lucas said.
“The last time this occurred, in 2015, the Saturday was not proclaimed a public holiday by the then Labor Government.
“There still are penalty rates for people working on a Saturday.”
Shop Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association Secretary Josh Peak, along with hundreds of union members, have written to Mr Lucas and Premier Steven Marshall, urging them to declare the Saturday the public holiday, in addition to Monday.
Mr Peak said Tasmania was the only other state not to have done so.
“Christmas is such a special time for many of us but for retail, fast food and warehousing workers, it’s also one of the busiest times of the year,” Mr Peak said in the letter.
“It’s only fair that hardworking men and women of the retail and fast food industries are afforded their usual public holiday rights on Boxing Day.”
“Do the right thing for thousands of South Australian retail and fast-food workers who will give up their family time over Christmas to ensure other South Australians can put food on the table.”
Mr Peak also raised concerns that if the Saturday is not declared a public holiday workers will not have a legal right to refuse to work, without punishment.
Mr Lucas told the Sunday Mail he will consider submissions from all interested parties before making a decision on shop trading hours over Christmas and next month’s Black Friday sales.
In February Mr Lucas told the Sunday Mail that trade across suburban Adelaide last Boxing Day was a roaring success, as “more than 150,000 South Australians and holidaying tourists flocked to the ’burbs to bag a post-Christmas bargain”.
The figure was a 20,000-strong increase from Boxing Day 2018 but was labelled misleading by opponents who said official data revealed there had been a drop-off in December retail sales growth in the two years since the Liberals brought in Boxing Day trading.
In 2018 and last year, Mr Lucas granted a special ministerial exemption, under the Shop Trading Hours Act 1977, to give suburban retailers the opportunity to open on the Boxing Day public holiday.