brendan o'connor

Penalty rate cuts fail to create jobs

January 31, 2018 by Rayan Calimlim

Cutting penalty rates has contributed to a reduction in consumer spending while failing to create any extra jobs or give workers more hours, according to recent research.

These outcomes are the opposite of what the Turnbull government and employers claimed would happen when the Fair Work Commission cut penalty rates in the retail, hospitality, fast food and pharmacy sectors last year.

Fair Work justified its decision in March by arguing a gradual reduction in penalty rates would result in “more trading hours, an expansion in the level of services offered and an increase in overall hours worked,” Fairfax Media reported.

However, a survey of 1351 workers by the University of Wollongong and Macquarie University found there has been no short-term increase in average weekly hours worked by employees.

University of Wollongong lecturer Martin O’Brien said some workers actually experienced a drop in the number of penalty rate hours they worked in the first two months after they were reduced.

Dr O’Brien concluded that up to 15 per cent of all retail workers who were employed on Sundays worked 9 per cent fewer hours between June and July, while hospitality workers experienced no change to their hours.

“This finding is in stark contrast to the hypothesised outcome,” he said.

Meanwhile, reductions in Sunday and public holiday penalty rates have been linked to the lowest increase in consumer spending since the global financial crisis.

Analysis by the McKell Institute found “some correlation” between the reduction in consumer spending in the September quarter and the penalty rate cuts that began to be implemented from July 1.

The 0.1 per cent rise in consumer spending in the September quarter was the lowest increase since the global financial crisis, The Australian reported.

“While strong business investment is evident, there is clear evidence that household consumption is weakening,’’ the discussion paper by the institute said.

“Most evident is a reduction in consumer spending in Quarter 3, 2017 – the first quarter since penalty rate reductions have been in place, suggesting the reduction in take-home pay for workers has reduced their capacity to spend.”

Opposition workplace relations spokesman Brendan O’Connor said Malcolm Turnbull should retract his claim that cuts to penalty rates will create “hundreds of thousands of jobs”.

“The only impact reducing penalty rates will have is a pay cut for some of the lowest paid,’’ he said.

ALP: employers have too much power

November 29, 2017 by Rayan Calimlim

Australia cannot tackle inequality or build a future of inclusive prosperity without a workplace relations system that is both productive and fair, says Brendan O’Connor.

“The tilt of bargaining power away from workers and to employers has gone too far,” says the ALP’s shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Brendan O’Connor.

In a speech to the National Press Club, O’Connor said Australia’s industrial relations laws are being “gamed” by employers, “cheered on by a complicit government”.

He cited large companies such as Pizza Hut or Myer using subcontractors on sham contracts to pay employees as little as $6 per hour.

“There is something really wrong when those big, household-name companies apparently feel absolutely no responsibility, or consider themselves immune from reputational risk, for exploitation of the workers on whose labour they make a vast profit,” he said.

“Wage theft appears to be reaching epidemic proportions across our economy. It’s not just 7-Eleven, or Dominos Pizza, or a certain celebrity chef underpaying workers.

“Over the 12 months from June 2015 to July 2016, the Fair Work Ombudsman recovered more than $27 million owed to over 11,000 workers, from almost 30,000 allegations of Fair Work Act breaches.”

O’Connor says the Turnbull government is “clueless” about what to do about these abuses.

“Instead, they obsess about destroying organised labour in all its forms, which will only put downward pressure on wages.”

The federal government’s behaviour as an employer is an insight into its workplace relations policies, he says.

“Look at the way the Turnbull government treats its own workforce: dragging out bargaining, outsourcing jobs, privatising services and fighting every step of the way the efforts of the CPSU (the
main federal public sector union) to protect the pay and conditions of Commonwealth public servants.”

The ALP’s plan to change the rules

In his Press Club speech Brendan O’Connor outlined some of the changes Labor intends to implement to make workplace relations fairer:

Amend the law to prevent employers forcing their workers into sham contracting arrangements to avoid direct employment.
Create a National Labor Hire Licensing scheme: a licence would only go to those employers with a clean record of complying with employment, tax and OH&S laws. Licences would be revoked for serious misconduct.
Increase penalties for employers who systematically underpay workers, make companies responsible for business practices that rely on underpaying workers, and ensure that Australian and temporary overseas workers are not being exploited.

‘The most anti-union law we have ever seen’

September 29, 2017 by Rayan Calimlim

The Turnbull government is trying to pass a law that would allow an employer or business group or the Employment Minister to act to sack a union leader or deregister a union.

Changes to the Registered Organisations Act would give employers or the government the power to interfere with the operations of unions.

The proposed Ensuring Integrity law would allow the minister or “a person with a sufficient interest” – such as an employer – to apply to the Federal Court to have a union official sacked or to shut down a union. It also creates a public-interest test that would make it harder for unions to merge.

ACTU Secretary Sally McManus described the bill as “the most anti-union law we have ever seen”.

“It’s an unbelievable attack on our democracy. Free, independent unions are essential to a strong democracy. This is in breach of our international obligations. Only authoritarian regimes interfere in this way to stop working people making decisions about how their union is run,” she said.

Labor’s workplace spokesman Brendan O’Connor told The Sydney Morning Herald the bill was “another salvo in the Turnbull government’s relentless assault on workers and their unions”.

“Institutions like the IMF and OECD are warning that declining union density and collective bargaining are contributing to stagnant wages and growing inequality.

“So it is beyond comprehension that this government would want to further undermine workers and their unions, which is what this bill does,” he said.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash defended the proposed law saying it would “ensure the Commission considers the record of the organisation and its officials in complying with the law”.

Sally McManus says the Turnbull government has double standards with “one set of laws for corporations and another for working people”.

“It seems under the Liberals there is one set of rules that apply to them and their mates and another set that applies to the rest of us.

“Unions are not businesses. We are independent organisations run by unpaid volunteers who have one purpose – to advance the interests of our members.

“We are campaigning to win better rights because the pendulum has swung too far in favour of employers. That is the real reason the Turnbull government is trying to get these extreme laws through parliament,” she said.

Contact a Senator and tell him to stop this bill!

The Ensuring Integrity Bill was introduced into parliament on August 16 and is being examined by a senate committee. It will be debated in the Senate during October.

The ACTU is urging union members to adopt a crossbencher from their state and contact them on social media or through their electorate office and tell them we will not accept this attack on our democracy.

The two NSW senate crossbenchers are:

Brian Burston
(One Nation):

https://www.facebook.com/brianburstononenation/

Electorate office:
(02) 6277 3197