Overview

The National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) is a non-politically aligned feminist organisation committed to examining the potentially differential impact of policies and their outcomes for men and women and whether the consequences of policies, intended or unintended, adversely affect women.

NFAW is pleased to have this opportunity to make a submission to the Commission’s review of penalty rates in selected hospitality and retail awards. We are making the submission because women are disproportionately represented in the retail and hospitality industries (FWC 2015a, table 5.1; FWC 2015b, table 5.1) ; more likely to receive minimum award wages (FWC 2015a, table 7.2; FWC 2015b, table 7.7) ; and more likely to rely on penalty rates to meet household payments (Daly, table 10) .

NFAW notes that a number of employer associations are attempting to rely in their submissions on views expressed in the recently released Productivity Commission report on the Workplace Relations Framework. NFAW recommended in its submission to the PC’s inquiry that it should conduct a thorough gender impact analysis of any evidence it received on the national minimum wage, minimum award rates and penalty rates from other stakeholders (Recommendation 51 ). The Draft and Final Reports contain no such analysis in relation to the impact of the Commission’s proposal to cut Sunday penalty rates in female-dominated ‘selected consumer services’, so we can only assume this has not been undertaken.

We submit that:

• There are no grounds for changing existing penalty rates.
• Submissions relying on the recent Productivity Commission (PC) Report on Workplace Relation as providing such grounds do not make a case that is convincing of itself, or that adequately addresses key considerations for the Commission in reaching its decision (s. 134 of the FWA), including the principle of equal remuneration.
• The Commission should retain existing penalty rates in the retail and hospitality industry awards under review.

 

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