Critical Times

people looking for holiday jobs in the first summer of the Work Choices laws are being urged to check employment contracts carefully to ensure they stipulate fair pay and conditions.

Increasing numbers of summer workers, including university and school students, will find it harder to make extra money working nights, weekends and public holidays because employers can now dispense with penalty and overtime rates, union leaders said.

The Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Union pointed to workplace agreements lodged with the Office of the Employment Advocate for a new Subway franchise and a new Oporto franchise.

They abolished penalty and overtime rates, annual leave loading, allowances, rest breaks and other award conditions. And they offered no compensatory increase in base pay rates.

For 17-year-olds, for example, the pay rate fell from $9.40 an hour before Work Choices to $8.75 in the new Subway agreement.

While this was legal for “greenfield” – or new – workplaces, union leaders cautioned that even at existing workplaces base pay increases might not compensate young people for the loss of penalty and shift rates.

Mark Lennon, the assistant secretary of Unions NSW, said university and school students were usually keen to make money over the summer holidays to help pay for their living costs during the rest of the year. They would be especially affected by the loss of overtime and penalty rates.

“If offered an Australian workplace agreement, don’t sign it. Take it away and check it out against the relevant award with the NSW Office of Industrial Relations,” Mr Lennon said. “I have yet to see an AWA that at the very least doesn’t take away penalty rates, which is a key provision for young people.”

The Victorian Workplace Rights Advocate, Tony Lawrence, told ABC radio there had been a significant increase in calls to his office’s advice line about the terms and conditions of employment being offered to young people in hospitality and retail.

With employers free to abolish penalty rates and the emergence of “all-in” pay, there was “great potential” for unfairness.

“Work Choices sweeps away many of the protections previously available to employees, particularly young employees,” Mr Lawrence said.

He had referred a Planet Surf shop to the federal Office of Workplace Services for investigation after a 16-year-old girl reported a cut to her pay, previously $15 an hour on Sunday and $21 an hour for public holidays.

After the chain abolished penalty rates and overtime it introduced a base bay rate of $9.54 for all hours worked.

Gerard Dwyer, the NSW branch secretary of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Union, said there were now no restrictions on rostering to ensure reasonable shift work for young people.

Some greenfield agreements stipulated minimum shifts of one hour and a maximum of 12 hours, he said.

Under the relevant award, the minimum was three hours.

“Otherwise it is not worth their while coming in,” Mr Dwyer said.

It was hard for unions to gauge the prevalence of unfair workplace deals because most young workers did not complain, he said.