00:00Woolworths and Coles and several other retail chains have backed this approach or push from
00:08the Australian Retailers Association.
00:11What they want to see here is a variation to the award which covers retail employees
00:17to allow those earning $53,000 or more to trade off their penalty rates over time and
00:27also rostering and break entitlements in favour of a 25% pay rise.
00:34They argue that it's time for more flexibility and this would pave way for that and they
00:39say that the changes would only apply to those who opt in.
00:43This sort of thing is fairly unusual to take place when we're talking about an award.
00:51These discussions usually occur in the enterprise bargaining phase in those negotiations so
00:58there is a bit of a difference this time around.
01:02It's particularly significant given as we are all hearing and know all too well the
01:06election is just around the corner so the government is very keen here to step up its
01:11messaging and saying that it doesn't want to see any workers go backwards in terms of
01:17their entitlements and wages, particularly those lower paid workers.
01:22This proposal applies to those earning relatively low wages when we compare them to others and
01:29it's a significant portion of the population as well, tens of thousands specifically affected
01:35by this proposal.
01:37The workplace relations and employment minister Murray Watt says that even if they were to
01:46accept this trade-off it would leave this cohort of workers worse off overall.
01:53Even if these workers agreed to this individually with the 25% pay rise on offer they would
01:58still be being paid significantly below average weekly earnings.
02:04So the government says it's not fair to swap out these conditions.
02:09The Association and businesses are of the alternative position saying that there is
02:15a need for more flexibility.
02:17The government agrees on that point and we're going to hear more about this case with further
02:23hearings due in the next month or so.
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