Blame Shorten, not Abbott if penalty rates are slashed

DID you see the union marches this week? Let’s be honest: penalty rates are under threat. By this time next year, 500,000 people could be working the same hours for less. This is because of Bill Shorten, not Tony Abbott.

If union leaders were honest, instead of marching the streets ranting about Abbott, they would have marched people up to Shorten’s office and demanded his resignation instead. This year, the Fair Work Commission will hear applications from employer groups for the reduction of penalty rates across several sectors. The only reason the FWC will be holding these hearings is because Shorten amended the Fair Work Act and required them to do so.

At the time, the initiative was sold as protecting penalty rates. In 2013, in the second reading for the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013, Shorten said: “Our bill makes it clear that this Labor government believes in the value and utility of penalty rates by reflecting the government’s position that work at hours which are not family friendly is fairly ­remunerated. This is done by amending the modern awards’ ­objective to ensure that the Fair Work Commission, in carrying out its role, must take into account the need to provide additional remuneration for employees working outside normal hours, such as employees working overtime or on weekends.”

These are weasel words if ever I have heard them. They say the opposite of what the amendment actually does. If Shorten really wanted penalty rates protected, he would never have told the Fair Work Commission to review them. Yet he did. I wonder why?

Could it be that behind the scenes, deals with the business community were done? Did Labor simply put FWC processes in place, and some pro-worker waffle on the record, so as to avoid blame for the anger that was sure to follow? If so, how delighted Labor must be to have Abbott and the Productivity Commission as convenient scapegoats.

Workplace Express, an industrial relations alert service to which I subscribe, recently reported on some of the pending applications that can be found in full on the Fair Work website: “ ... the ARA (Australian Retailers Association), NRA (National Retail Association) and Master Grocers Australia are asking the FWC to cut the Sunday penalty rate in clause 29.4 of the General Retail Industry Award from double time to 50 per cent. They also want to reduce the Sunday shift penalty for casuals from 100 per cent to 75 per cent.

“Restaurant & Catering Industrial want Sunday loadings in the Fast Food Industry Award dropped from 50 per cent to 25 per cent for full-time and part-time workers, and from 75 per cent to 50 per cent for casuals.

“The AiG (Australian Industry Group) and the NRA are pushing for similar reductions in the Fast Food award.

“Restaurant & Catering has also applied for the same cut in the Sunday loading in the Restaurant Industry Award for permanent and casual employees, and a 100-percentage point reduction in the public holiday loading (from 250 per cent to 150 per cent) for both groups.

And the Australian Hotels Association and the Accommodation Association of Australia say the Sunday penalty rate in the Hospitality Industry (General) Award should come down from 75 per cent to 50 per cent.”

Naturally, unions don’t want to tell people that the real threat to penalty rates is because of Labor. The ACTU president, Ged Kearney, prefers to blame pending penalty rate cuts on “employers”. On December 23 last year, she said: “The employers are going after them in the Fair Work Commission while the Abbott government is using the Productivity Commission to do the same.”

We already know that the government has ruled out using its Productivity Commission inquiry to cut penalty rates. Minister for Employment Eric Abetz, said in January, “Labor in government also tasked the Fair Work Commission to conduct a review of all modern awards, which is currently under way. The terms of reference for this review specifically require the commission to review penalty rates because Bill Shorten as minister amended the Fair Work Act to compel it to do so. Unlike the Productivity Commission, the Fair Work Commission’s review actually has the power to change or remove penalty rates.”

So if people have penalty rate reductions this year, they shouldn’t blame Abbott. What they should do instead is contact Shorten’s office and ask him why he went out of his way to change the law so that their wages could be cut.