Are you sure about your baseline numbers, rehctub?

>>I work on a sale of $15 for ease of working. Which means the wage component of that meal is $5.25<<

According to this, each $15 order requires 17.5 minutes of dedicated labour.

That's quite a long elapsed time, in any service-oriented process, and would not seem to me to be a sensible business model to begin with.

What exactly do they do? I might be able to help you improve productivity quite substantially, if you are interested.

Lane56, the problem arose when the then Rudd government, with Gillard as employment minister, decided to come up with her one size fits all award system. Prior to that, there were penalty rates, but not the excessive ones the likes of the hospitality industry endures. There were also arrangements whereby employees could work say on a Sunday, at normal time, then have a week day off as well. Labor didn't like this.

We are also demanding a seven day society, something that was introduced (in QLD) about ten years ago.

You can't change trading hours without changing working arrangement otherwise you end up with an imbalance, which is what we now have in certain industries.

Pericles, the labor component takes in all aspects of producing that $15 meal, including cooking, cleaning, preparation, down time between customers and tasks, even holiday pay, sick leave and super.

Take a coffee shop, where your average cappichino costs around 40 cents to make.

Now if the owner could sell back to back coffees from open to close, they would make a fortune, but the reality' is, they don't. If they did, their cost of wages, as a percentage, would decrease.

Back to your average fish and chip shop.

Cost of goods is about 20 to 25%, wages 35% so the owner retains 40% GROSS. Out of that comes the rent, power etc etc and profit.

If wages increase to even 60% on a public holiday,allowing for increased productivity, the additional 25% comes from profits, because the power is the same, the rent the same, so on and so on.

It's interesting to see all the pro penalty rates supporters dodging the question of, how does is the worker no worse off if they have lost their shift/job.

At the end of the day, much of our workforce is now casual, thanks largely to restrictive conditions placed on employers. What a pity.

Some casual workers, may also have another job working either full or part-time.

Sure there are under the table cash payments, made to workers, but then if this type of payment is made, how can a business afford it?

Interestingly there is also a claim that the minimum wage is too high.

o.k rehctub, that is all well and good, yeah lets give a week day in leu of a weekend day, when the rest of the family is possibly working. Families are already being seperated to accommodate this workplace situation. Remember they all wanted to open weekends & public holidays years ago to what, benifit me. I dont' think so. They did it because it benefited them with all the allowances in place then. They want to change it for the bottom line. Rember if this changes it will go across the board & effect other industries. Also the tax is applicable to the earning. The ones that have this as a second job & are on the books, pay the tax!! Dollars round to go round.

......Sure there are under the table cash payments, made to workers, but then if this type of payment is made, how can a business afford it?

Simple Wally B, because if a worker earns say $400 on a PH and, assuming they work full time, about $170 of that goes in tax.

So, if the boss pays $250 cash, he saves $150 and the worker gets another $80 plus, they may keep thier welfare payments whichnis usually to motivator for cash wages in the first place.

Lane, as for that mid week day off, it could be used to play golf, go fishing, or spend some quality one on one with the partner while the kids are at school.

Besides, the day off in leu was to replace the double time, so in effect they worked four days not five.

All I know was it worked well for many, but the system they loved, has been taken away from them without consultation.

I lived small business, did of you?

Wolly B, yes some have other casual jobs, trying to make a possible livable wage at the end of the week. No permanancy, no guarantees, just survive. I've been fortunate to have been fully employed in the workforce for 40 years & watched this evolve. We are the lucky country, everyone can have a share of the pie not necessarily all the pie & certainly not the crumbs, if you put in get rewarded.