Powder puff you say Paul. What's 'powder puff' about a question about one party, having taken all the risk, being stripped of profits, while the other party gains?

Where is the fairness in that I ask?

Why should one party win, at the expense of the other, especially given the other carries the risk?

Butch, read my argument and as I said there are benefits for the small business by trading 7 days a week. The employees also take a risk, should the business go broke and they lose their jobs. Could result in an extended period of unemployment.

The powder puff was just a light-hearted witticism, on my part, your arguments have some credence at times, but this one does contain some basic errors, as I have pointed out.

Butch, do you also view annual leave, sick pay, long service leave, public holidays, superannuation and other benefits employees receive as unfair imposts on employers? If so do you believe they to should be done away with?

Do you favor payment at piece rates? In our example, employees could be paid according to how many cups of coffee they sell. Even an incentive scheme, 5 cents per cup for the first 1000 cups, 10 cents next 1000 and so on. That would get them motivated to sell more cups. Even a quota system where an employee is set a daily target, say 3,000 cups, should he fail to reach target, that could be add to the next days target. In our example if the employer set the target at 3,000 cups and the slack employee only sold 2500, in a 16 hour day, the next day the first 1500 cups would be paid at 5 cents a cup, a marvelous incentive. could even set a gold target of say 5000 cups for the day, then a $10 bonus is paid. the possibilities are endless.

Of course junior staff would be paid at the junior rate of 1 or 2 cents a cup.

Paul, i don't have a problem with most benefits, although with regards to super I would prefer it be paid in their weekly wage, then they can invest it themselves.

I say this because employers already perform enough unpaid duties for the government, but of cause the government knows most will spend it.

Parental leave is unfair in my view, along with having to hold a position open on the 'off chance' the worker wants to return. Domestic violence is also on the agenda which I also disagree with.

As for 'piece work', there is no fairer way and although it may not work in many sectors, it is perfectly suited to the likes of fruit picking, beef boning, chicken boning, fish filleting. Anything that involves volumes that can be assessed as productivity.

Interesting to note that one third of small businesses are dipping into their personal savings to stay afloat. Where is that heading Paul?