The platform of the Australian Labor Party – what it calls its “positive policies” – has the protection of penalty rates front and centre. This makes sense. The ALP purports to hold the interests of workers at its core, and penalty rates matter to plenty of those workers.
According to the Australian Council of Trades Unions, more than 4 million people would be affected by an attack on penalty rates, including nurses, emergency services workers and retail and hospitality staff.
Against the backdrop of a campaign to slash Sunday rates, polls consistently show overwhelming support – between 70 and 80 percent – for the retention of penalties. Labor is swimming with the tide on this issue.
The Liberal government could hardly have picked a worse time to make its case to start eroding these rates. Throughout 2015 and into 2016, very public investigations have revealed that countless businesses, large and small, already refuse to pay their workers the legal minimums, including penalty rates. 
With the Fair Work Commission’s ruling on weekend penalty rates set to be handed down within months and widespread support for their retention, surely Bill Shorten would jump at any opportunity to reaffirm Labor’s support for workers? Apparently not.
Asked on Melbourne radio if he would accept a Fair Work Commission decision to cut penalty rates, Shorten’s “Yes” was unequivocal. He flatly ruled out the idea of introducing legislation to protect penalty rates. In other words, if Labor wins the federal election, it is promising to do nothing to protect penalty rates. Zilch. Nada.
For the unions whose members stand to lose if penalty rates are cut, there could be no starker reminder that cheerleading for this party is no strategy to protect workers’ rights.

Jack Todaro

Labor’s empty support for penalty rates exposed

An audit by the Fair Work ombudsman into the fast food industry has exposed widespread underpayment of workers. The ombudsman’s spot checks revealed that only 53 percent of fast food outlets were paying their workers correctly.
The fast food industry award dictates minimum rates of pay and working conditions which apply to workers across the whole sector. This latest report confirms that the fast food industry is built on the widespread flouting of award minimums.
After one prominent franchise, Bing Boy, was investigated for the underpayment of workers on working-holiday visas, it defended its $13 an hour flat wage rate by arguing that $10 an hour was common across the industry. Based on these rates of pay, fast food workers are taking home around $350 a week less than is allowed under the award.
In the similarly low-paid hospitality industry, a Fairfax Media investigation in October 2015 found that up to 80 percent of foreign language job listings were openly advertising hourly rates well below the minimum wage. In some cases, employers offered “black market” jobs for as little as $4 an hour.
In the hospitality and fast food industries, where jobs are insecure and many workers are young, it has become the norm to take what you’re given. There is very little expectation that workers will receive legal minimum rates, penalty rates, overtime payments or job stability.
While the Fair Work ombudsman may investigate a handful of employers that come to its attention, many thousands more will carry on their illegal operations unhindered.
It is to the shame of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association – the union responsible for fast food industry employees – that working conditions have become so bad in this industry. In hospitality, the inaction of the union, United Voice, has left thousands of hospitality workers stuck in low-paying and precarious jobs.
It is incumbent on these unions to set foot in the workplaces where their members work, explain to workers what their rights are and start organising them. Collective organisation is the only defence that fast food and hospitality workers have against bosses who are used to getting their way.

Audit reveals endemic wage rorts in fast food industry

More than three years after their last pay agreement expired, vocational education (VE) staff at RMIT University are still fighting for a new one. After a successful strike in October, they started the new academic year with further industrial action. A half-day strike on 23 February forced the university to cancel 20 percent of VE classes for the day.
The VE teachers say that their wages and conditions lag well behind other workers at RMIT. “They’re treating us, the teachers, as second-class citizens”, said Sylwia Greda-Bogusz, VE teacher and NTEU delegate, speaking to Red Flag on the picket line. 
They’re treating us, the teachers, as second-class citizens.
Around 640 teachers deliver RMIT’s vocational education programs to approximately 14,000 students. Their sector was formerly known as TAFE, but the division at RMIT was scrapped in 2013. “While previously it was a dual sector institution – higher education and also TAFE – that model is dead”, explained Zlatko, a VE teacher. “In all RMIT policies and procedures, there is only one university”, he said.
RMIT promotes the VE programs to students as the start of a “seamless” education pathway from diploma to doctorate. According to the union, two-thirds of VE students can articulate into the second or third year of bachelor degrees.
“Technically, I teach the first and the second year of an undergraduate program”, Sylwia said. The university, however, wants VE teachers stuck on wages and conditions that are pegged to the in-crisis TAFE, which has been gutted by funding cuts. Vocational education at RMIT contributes $150 million to RMIT’s annual revenue, the NTEU reports. 
“For many many years we weren’t given a pay rise”, Sylwia said. A single administrative rise of 2.5 percent delivered at the end of last year was the only increase since their agreement ended. “The VE [salary] is well down on being paid in comparison to primary and secondary school teachers”, she said. RMIT also pays a superannuation contribution of only 9.5 percent for VE teachers, while other staff receive nearly double that – 17 percent.
VE teachers are demanding a wage offer that compensates for the two-year freeze on wages after their agreement expired, superannuation parity, an end to rolling fixed term contracts, workload regulation and holiday breaks in line with other RMIT staff. They have already rejected two draft agreements put to ballot by the university. The union says that work bans will stay in place until the university makes a decent offer.
Sylwia says that vocational education is a “fantastic money spinner for the university … but this hasn’t been reflected in the way staff are treated”.

Labor’s empty support for penalty rates exposed

Audit reveals endemic wage rorts in fast food industry

RMIT teachers strike again

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