20 February 2007

A picnic day by another name?

| johnboy
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The ABC reports that the ACT Government is looking at bringing in another public holiday to replace the union picnic day lost under the workchoices laws (or “the Howard Government’s extreme IR agenda” if you bend that way).

Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth from the employer lobbies who are still outraged they aren’t allowed to dock staff wages for the air consumed on their premises.

At least this way everyone gets a picnic day rather than just union members.

It’s not like public holidays have much meaning to many people anymore anyway.

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penalty rates can now be negotiated away rather than have been abolished.

for a business running to office hours it would make sense to leave them and pay less.

I vote for Jon “nero” Stanhope birthday holiday. Only problem is it is on April 29 and we don’t need another holiday in April….but like the Queen we could celebrate it later in the year.

I thought penalty rates were abolished under Work Choices.

Cup Day as a holiday would be nice.

Why don’t the Unions just organise their “picnic” to coincide with Canberra Day?! That way they get to have their little family get together and the govt doesnt have to come up with some baloney excuse for a public holiday.
Just because you’re a Union member doesnt mean you are entitled to an extra day off work compared to non-union members.

neanderthalsis11:56 am 20 Feb 07

“Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth from the employer lobbies who are still outraged they aren’t allowed to dock staff wages for the air consumed on their premises. “

Public holidays are good for retail trade. Give people a day off and they will no doubt fill the shopping centres. It’s true that you have to pay the staff more, which is why you only see 15yo’s working on public holidays (double time at $6 an hour is still cheaper that a normal time adult).

Absent Diane10:31 am 20 Feb 07

Well this friday is absent diane of the imminent present day. It should be a public holiday, but this year we a shifting celebrations to the saturday night and they will then continue for two weeks in thailand. Next year I am aiming to have it recognised though.

What about Darwin day.. although that would be in jan I think.

Perhaps we should just have one public holiday a month.

VYBerlinaV8 now_with_added grunt10:04 am 20 Feb 07

Why not let people just have an extra day of holidays to be taken when it suits them?

What do I care? I’m a contractor, and get paid by the day. Public Holidays are a waste of $$ to me.

November is a bit late for another holiday in the year (and Melbourne Cup is another holiday here regardless of the official stance). We need something right in the middle of the holiday drought between Queen’s BDay & Xmas – how about August 24 as Kramer day?

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