Penalty rates cut a punch in the gut

The verdict is in: the attack on penalty rates is class war. The dress rehearsal for going after the nurses, ambos, firies and everyone else’s penalty rates is a historic defeat for our side. For me – a hospo worker – the Fair Work Commission decision is like a punch in the guts.

But the attacks aren’t likely to end there. Another group will be in the firing line next. That’s how business and governments always try to win, by dividing us and then picking us off.

Terry, a regular at a pub I used to work at, is a shop steward with the CFMEU. He joined in one of the last rallies to defend penalty rates. He told me a story about how, after the march, he ended up at a pub explaining to the bartender why he was protesting. “An attack on one worker is an attack on all of us”, he said to the worker he was talking to. It’s solidarity 101. That a construction worker had to explain this to a hospo worker in the first place is part of the problem.

The fact that since the ruling lots of hospo workers have been telling me, “I’ve never even been paid penalty rates anyway”, is another part of what’s wrong here. Hospitality workers are some of the least organised in the country. There’s no good reason for this. It’s just that our union has never seriously tried to organise in our workplaces.

Wherever I’ve worked, I’ve always tried to convince my workmates to join the union. We’ll always be easy targets if we don’t organise. The decision to go after our wages first is pretty clear evidence of the parlous strength of the union in the hospitality industry.

If it wants to turn this around, our union has to throw itself into the campaign to defeat the penalty rates decision. If it wants to lead workers in this sector, and give them a reason to join, it has to fight.