It looks like penalty rates in the retail and hospitality sectors, a crippling blow to these industries, may be in for the chop and rightly so.

Of causen he unions would like us to believe that these rates don't effect this sector, yea right, pull the other one.

These are now seven day industries and weekends are now very busy trading days. Combine this with the relentless push from the large retailers and the reality is that we either drop these rates, or at least greatly reduce them, or risk loosing many in these industries, especially small players.

We must remember that people choose to work in retail and hospitality, the industries don't choose people.

When consumer confidence is low the first casualties are luxuries and retail. When you pay 5 $ for coffee it is something you can go without, and last years shirt will do another year.
For those that can not make ends meet can go back to 5 day trading, that way you will not have any staff to worry about.
The only reason you have staff in hospitality on weekends is because of penalty rates.
Hospitality is a very fragile business and over represented. Coffee shops and bakeries are not essential to daily living, to eliminate penalty rates would be a very hard grind, and unachievable in this decade.
What needs more so than trying to take someone’s penalty rates is to have regulations on a non essential service like hospitality.
The minimum wage has increases because that is deemed to be the minimum requirement of life for that particular age group. Weekend trading is up to you and is not compulsory. If weekend trading was compulsory you would have a case.
It would be up to you to lobby govt; and have weekend trading listed as compulsory trading days.

Another attack on the Poor way to go

Isn't it funny how everyone was happy before Julia brought out the big stick. Now many mums are finding it tough as they are too expensive to hire on weekends and more and more classy resaurants/caffees are closing on Sunday's.

Surely that tells us something?

BTW, my staff get paid well above award rates but they are exceptional workers. They have to be because I don't employ duds and if I do happen to they don't last with me.

I also see there is a long over due review of the un fair dismissal laws whereby it is proposed that an employee can't sue if found to be dishonest or has gone slack. Hurar I say!

The sooner we can make dinosaurs extinct again the better.

Problem with the said industries is there are a lot cheat's i.e
cash in hand this is biggest problem how can an honest business compete
Also how many American companies Coffee shops / fast food restaurants are doing doggy tax ?
It's not the Poor that should be further punished, it is time the Industry took control themselves to shut down this crap but then the Big boys are probably paying kickbacks

When the footy grand finals are played on a weekday and schools, government offices, parliament and financial institutions are open on the weekend then we might be able to start talking.

Mikk, there's no immediate plan to reduce P Rates for government and essential services, the likes of nurses deserve every penny in OT rates they get. But, when Sunday rates means the business owner often looses money we have a problem and by simply doing the sums blind Freddie can see that. Now if someone wants to challenge that il be happy to provide an example.

Of cause the other big issue is that of how many casuals are rostered. I believe it's now mandatory to advise a casual of their finishing time when they start. That's fine provided the customers works with the same rules, which they don't.

The sooner people accept that we need to head towards somewhere between the US system fir hospitality, and where we are, many small businesses will hit the wall. Don't believe me, google search free restaurant for lease and see how many you find where owners have walked out, many having lost everything.

Consumers will have a few choices, one, stay with what we have and loose, two, get used to auto coffee machine brewed late's, or three, allow for reduced wages and allow premium staff to be rewarded by customers for a job well done.

As for expecting an unskilled 38 hr week job to provide the means of buying a house, well, that's why we're in such a mess in the first place because to have a decent lifestyle require either brains or brawn. So unless you have the brains to pull a five figure income, then it's off to work you go, and go, and go. It worked for me.

Is this simply about the rich being able to get their coffee latte on a Sunday from one of their 16 favorite cafes. No! This is about Abbott trying to reintroduce by the backdoor one of his sinister old chestnuts 'Work (No) Choices'! The ACTU rightly points out that the Productivity Commission Inquiry was called by the Abbott Government in order to cut penalty rates, the minimum wage and rights at work – the interim report confirms that.
If Abbott wants to take this and his other planned attacks on workers rights to an election, then all I can say is bring it on!

http://www.actu.org.au/actu-media/media-releases/2015/productivity-commission-report-attacks-penalty-rates-minimum-wage-and-rights-at-work

When you dismiss someone for being dishonest, under who's judgement did you get your information from. We have law courts for that.

That is why the changes from this chap will never happen. The laws are already in place.

We can't change laws so employers can take advantage of wording.

I am afraid this bloke is going to miss out on his wish.

When Abbott commissioned these inquiries he was living his dream.

Work choices failed miserably, best to take it to an election.

Sundays are no different from any other day of the week in Australia. There is no longer a "day of rest" where people took it easy and went to church. In fact, most Australians openly sneer about the old meaning of Sunday; but the same greedy buggers expect to be paid more for working on just another day that has no meaning to them, spiritually or otherwise. They can't have it both ways.

Yes ttbn, people often overlook one very important factor, that being wages, along with all costs must be affordable and, give most have slashed their food costs to the absolute bone there is no room left to low this cost. Something has to give to save hospitality or we face being a nation with high wages and no jobs to earn them.

Having been in retail my entire working life an analogy I often use today is that while we used to pick our money up with a shovel we now use a landing net and most of it falls though the holes. Hospitality is even worse because if you struggle to make money from $8 per egg you know there's a problem.

It only stands to reason that if a caffee made $100,000 a year profit ten years ago, then why shouldn't it make say $180K today as a minimum and that's simply not the case.

Mhhh 80% increase
how much has min wage gone up in 10 years 7% bit greedy
and as a cost to business over last 10 years your saying wages are the problem ?
I would be looking closer at
rent <--- probably doubled
utilities<---- 1000% ?
taxes <-- Depends on what taxes we have this week,not much confidence here
all 3 in a market out of control
I would take it further 25 years of prosperity in Australia Please no more I and many can't afford anymore growth, who has this really gained, and when the crash comes how many mum's and dad's will be hurt, The System is broken apply patch's like you ask for are only going to make it worse.

There is plenty of sting for the workers in this so called Productivity Commission interim report. The real reason for this interim report being released now is to gauge reaction and test the waters for Abbott's new version of Howard's old killer Work Choices.

Professor John Buchanan, a workplace researcher from the University of Sydney business school, said the proposed individual enterprise agreements were like a later model of WorkChoices introduced by the Howard government, which included a no-disadvantage test.
"The final swag of recommendations have a very strong WorkChoices flavour of tilting bargaining power towards employers," Professor Buchanan said.
"The proposal that strike action can be terminated if it does 'significant economic harm to the employer alone' betrays either naivety or bias of the highest order. That is the primary reason why strikes are undertaken.
"While the commission advocates 'repairing not replacing' our current system the effects of its proposed changes would profoundly shift power in it. This would be achieved by weakening the independent standing of the Fair Work Commission as a body comprised of thoughtful practitioners and a major erosion of unions' ability to act effectively in the labour market." from the SMH today.

ttbn, if as you say Sundays are just another (working) day why are you not advocating the abolition of all penalty rates including those paid to essential service employees coppers, nurses, ambos, firey's etc add to that public transport workers etc. Why are these people entitled to more and low paid workers are not? After all their basic rates are well above shop assistants and hospitality workers.

All Industrial-Relations laws and regulations, including minimum-wage and penalty-rates, should be repealed in favour of a uniform, unconditional and straight-forward negative-income-tax that is based on income (or the lack of it) rather than on work (or the lack of it).

While no one should go hungry, it is not the duty of those deemed "employers" to care for the needs of those deemed "employees". Just because two people happen to make a contract between them does not make the one responsible for the welfare of the other!

Well said Yuyutsu, you see so many workers today take their jobs for granted and think it's their given right to have a well paid job. What they don't take into consideration is that in order to have that job, someone has to take a risk, and this is amplified with small businesses as to secure a commercial lease these days usually involves personal guarantees meaning that your assets are on the line.

However, with the likes of retail and hospitality, it's the consumers that hold the balance of power as they talk with their wallets and, if they deem that $8 is too expensive orr a single egg, then they stop buying that egg.

As for wages increasing 7% in ten years, pull the other one Aussieboy. Any increase in super is an increase in wages that also has to be taken into the mix. Or has the opinion changed that super was in lue of wage increases?

While I accept that an 80% increase in profits is a bit rich, the reality is many today in small businesses are actually working for less now than they did ten years ago and they have so much unpaid crap to deal with as well.

As for Sundays being just another day, I'm guessing that was meant to relate to retail and hospitality as consumers have made these busy days through the adjustments in their lifestyles.

I say penalty rates should remain for essential services.

But, as I keep saying over and over again, wages are simply a cost of doing business and must be paid with profits and, if the profits get eaten away even further, and given that food costs can not be cut any more than they have, either the landlords and service providers are going to have to give some ground, or the staff, but either way if things continue as they are these industries are going to suffer big time.

If you don't believe me, just keep pushing and see where it gets us.

Where it will get us is revolution
At the moment the poor have been bleed dry
in rough figures say this equates to 5% population
Now the next 5% better be warned you are already being targeted
This will continue to grow
The Rich must feed off the Poor to survive
Rich will get richer Poor get Poorer
This is Developing as we speak
what the Magic % is I don't know 25-50% ?
But I do know unless we stand up to the stupidity of "fiscal growth"
And start putting a human component into calculations we are doomed
Currently we are writing off a generation of young People,it is happening today right now
We can only save ourselves not america not china they have their own interests at stake we don't even rate on the CARE meter, But Greedy People will continue to sell us out short term gain long term pain. So fall into the trap of putting another nail in the coffin. A lot of you guy's are way better educated then I am no argument, But education does not equate to smart or honest.
Why not put all your incredible brain power to solutions not patchs to a dying way of life

Revolution in Australia, Aussieboy?

No problem mate, but first you need certification, a complying insurance and to satisfy all health-and-safety requirements before you can register to become a revolutioner...

If your aim is to stop the poor from becoming poorer, then look no further - negative income tax is the solution, industrial laws are the wrong tool and are neither effective nor moral!

Aussieboy I'm not sure what the min wage has increased by in the past five years, but there have been quite a few 3-4% increases as well as increases in super. So if employees get their increases, why don't employers deserve their increases as well, in fact, the employers increases should be greater because they're the ones who are taking the risks.

As for the rich getting richer, they don't get richer by doing nothing in most cases, whereas many of the poor are poor because they choose to be, an example being not wanting to work too much for fear of loosing tax payer funded hand outs.

At 55 myself I'm still quite capable of working 70+ hours per week, And I do, so if I am rich I feel I've earned the right. On the other hand one of my workers only wants three days per week because any more sees her welfare payments decrease too much and her child care costs become unaffordable, so she chooses to be poor.

But in reality you know the system is broken when one can choose to not work too hard for fear of loosing tax payer funded hand outs. So most rich people are not rich by accident or through sheer luck.

I think we'll all survive cooking our own breakfast. If the consumer wont pay, and the business doesn't make a profit, I cant see the harm in them closing down on weekends. That's capitalism.

If they make most of their money on weekends, they should pay the staff more on those days, and close on Mondays.

Seems to me there are many many businesses happy to stay open on weekends where I live, and they charge massive amounts for a fry up, and consumers are happy to be ripped off for the convenience.

No problem here.

Sure people don't have a right to a job butcher, but the entrepreneur doesn't have a right to a profit either. If you're not making a profit in Hospitality, choose another business venture.