Thirty years ago Victorians witnessed a revolution in retail spearheaded by a suburban hardware store owner.
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Frank Penhalluriack even spent time in jail as a result of opening his Caulfield business on a Sunday in defiance of legislative requirements.
His perseverance, with widespread public support, in the 1980s was rewarded when the state government changed the law to allow weekend trading.
It was the start of a business and lifestyle revolution that meant our weekends would never be the same again.
Not only has our ability to shop when we like been radically transformed – the food industry has changed to the extent that it is a major part of who we are and brings significant income to the Border region.
Of course the sacrosanct nature of the weekend has long meant that anyone who had to work on a Sunday in particular would get compensation through penalty rates.
This was the result of a major effort by unions, who believed there should be decent compensation for people whose skills meant they had little choice but to lose out on family leisure time. That was especially the case in the hospitality sector and in the years since the Penhalluriack case, in retail as our shopping centres boomed.
All this makes Thursday’s decision of the Fair Work Commission one of the most significant in the area of industrial relations in decades.
Many thousands of people will be directly affected by the decision to cut Sunday penalty rates in the retail, fast food, hospitality and pharmacy industries – for example, from 200 per cent to 150 per cent of the standard hourly rate for full- and part-time workers.
Industry groups and business operators on the Border have certainly been vocal in recent years for such cuts.
They argue that high penalty rates are a substantial financial impost that impacts greatly on profitability, which in turn deters the employment of more staff.
But given our increasingly casualised workforce, an equally meritorious argument can be argued in favour of the potential impact on ordinary struggling workers being put in a more precarious financial position. Put simply, more bills won’t be paid on time.
The onus is then on business and government to try to find ways around the possible negative financial impact on working families.