Hospitality workers bracing for $2000 pay cut
Swathes of hospitality workers are bracing for the effects of a penalty rate cut from July 1 following a decision from the independent Remuneration Tribunal.
The July 1 cut is the third in a series of cuts that began in 2017 designed to bring the penalty rates down to the Fair Work Commission’s desired level.
The cut in penalty rates could leave some hospitality workers up to $2000 worse off, according to United Voice secretary Jo-anne Schofield.
The average hospitality worker makes $20.91 an hour working during the week, with a 10 percentage point penalty rate cut on 1 July amounting to a loss of $40 a week.
“Retail and hospitality workers are having real difficulties putting food on the table or meeting their utility and medical bills from week to week as they face yet another round of penalty rate cuts,” Schofield said.
“Working people need jobs that are secure and pay them fairly – not more cuts that stop them from being able to pay for life’s essentials.”
Speaking to Yahoo Finance, the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work chief economist and director Jim Stanford said the reductions in penalty rates “will just make things a little bit worse”.
“Because hundreds of thousands of Australian workers will have a little less money in their wallets,” he said.
“This whole experiment was justified by employers’ promise that lower wages would lead to more jobs and longer hours of work. But two years of evidence have decisively disproven that promise.”
Business lobby groups argued that the cut in penalty rates would result in more people being employed on weekends and public holidays.
However, there has so far been so signs of that happening, according the Council of Small Business Australia chief executive, Peter Strong, who told The Australian there has been no extra jobs on a Sunday.
“There’s been no extra hours. It’s been just a waste of time,” he said.
Sheridan Randall, 10th June 2019
