ACTU: Majority Support for Penalty Rates

07 August, 2013 | Media Release

Australians overwhelmingly oppose a push by business groups to cut workers’ penalty rates, with polling showing the public believes this would increase profits without creating jobs or improving the economy.

ACTU President Ged Kearney said abolishing penalty rates would strip billions of dollars out of the economy by cutting workers’ incomes.

“Not only do workers rely on penalty rates to meet the cost of living, the extra money is returned to businesses when workers go shopping or go to a café or a movie,” Ms Kearney said.

“Business groups have been campaigning strongly to cut penalty rates and the union movement is greatly concerned that the Coalition’s promised post-election review of the Fair Work Act will pave the way for cuts to the penalty rates of pay that millions of workers rely on,” Ms Kearney said.
 
Polling conducted by Essential Research shows that most Australians (79 per cent) support higher pay rates for people who work outside normal hours on night shifts, weekends or public holidays. Only 13 per cent were opposed.

Australians rejected business claim that cutting penalties rates would save jobs, with 64 per cent saying the main outcome of abolishing penalty rates would be that company profits would increase, and only 18 per cent saying companies would employ more workers.

A majority (57 per cent) said abolishing penalty rates would be bad for the economy because workers would have less to spend, while only 22 per cent said it would be good for the economy because it would create more jobs.

The ACTU has estimated that between those on awards and collective agreements, 4.6 million workers (48.1% of the workforce) are entitled to penalty rates for a public holiday and 4.2 million (44.2%) for a weekend, if they work at those times.

“Even on very conservative assumptions, millions of Australians receive part of their income each week from penalty rates, and the total value of these payments is many billions of dollars each year,” said Ms Kearney.

“Cutting penalty rates would immediately reduce the standard of living of millions of Australians and take many billions of dollars out of the economy, costing jobs.”