15 April 2009

Easter public holiday surcharges

| dvaey
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[First filed: April 13, 2009 @ 08:09]

I just finished working my duly rostered shifts over the easter weekend, having been asked to work over Easter as other staff were away for the weekend. I agreed to the shifts, to help out over a busy period, as I work in a fast-food based business and most of the young staff were on school holidays or away with family.

My first issue, is to do with 10% surcharges. My employer enforced a 10% surcharge for Good Friday, which is understandable due to the nature of the day.

I turned up to work on Saturday and was informed the 10% surcharge was in force for the entire weekend, as according to the ACT Government, the entire Easter weekend is classified as a public holiday. Maybe I’m out of touch with the times, but I was always taught that Jesus died on the Friday (hence the significance), and came back at midnight 3 days later, hence the significance of Easter Monday and Sunday in the church calendar. I always believed ‘Easter Saturday’ was a normal day. Upon further research, Saturday is now the public holiday and Easter Sunday is just the ‘normal day’.

My second and more important issue, is penalty rates over the easter weekend. I offered to cover Good Friday, expecting that as it is a significant day, and the business was charging a surcharge, that those staff who worked would receive penalty rates for missing our long weekend. To my surprise, I was advised that pay rates for the long weekend are the same as regular pay, and the 10% surcharge profit is simply going to the franchisee.

Can this activity be legal? Can making under 18s work over easter for no penalty rates be fair? Can profiting off a religious public holiday be legal? Apparently under the new(old) workchoices agreements, they can.

Has anyone else here been charged a 10% surcharge this weekend, unaware of the fact that the workers arent receiving it, but the store owners instead?

UPDATED: Well done dvaey, The Canberra Times now reports that the Workplace Ombudsman is now on the case.

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I was under the impression that officially Good Friday, Easter Saturday & Easter Monday are public holidays. Easter Sunday is not a public holiday.

http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/2233/publicholidays2009.pdf

dvaey said :

While I do have a part concern over revealing the employer concerned, as it has happened over many years and now appears to be investigated, I will name them as Pizza Hut. I have had a dispute ongoing for over 12 months over the payment of proper penalty rates or proper pay for work performed, but keep getting told my contract doesnt have provision for penalty rates, or higher pay for higher duties. For more information on the unions investigating this very issue, check out http://www.greenleft.org.au/2005/635/34209 or google for “Isaac Nakhla”, another employee who went to the media a few years ago.

I have been told this policy has been adopted by all Pizza Hut restaurants, and I believe it extends to many other brands within the same industry.

The Workplace Ombudsman has my story now, I’ll post any follow-up tidbits here if/when they come to me.

I hope you have gone to the ombudsman – because if the award covers you for penalty rates, it goes above any contract written by the employer. As someone said – it’s upheld by law.

Sigh. Should really re-read before I hit post. I neglected to mention that most times we never finished until midnight at the earliest, once even leaving at 2am. But we only ever got paid until 11.

Oops. Sorry about that misuse of the quotation device!

dvaey said :

While I do have a part concern over revealing the employer concerned, as it has happened over many years and now appears to be investigated, I will name them as Pizza Hut. quote]

Looks like Pizza Hut have not changed their ways then. I slaved for them in my final years of high school 93-94. Despite being in my senior year and asking for less shifts they rostered me on to “close” 3 – 4 nights per week. They always knocked off the other staff earlier to save money and despite the fact that we sometimes had customers sitting in the restaurant until 10.30 or 11 at night we were not paid past 11. According to Pizza Hut legend that is when the “close” should be completed.

I am glad we used to knick the cutlery and throw it across the car park. I hate them.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :

I rarely go to restuarants (other than club type food), and never go on super popular days. If you want to enjoy this kind of lifestyle, pay the surcharge. If you don’t want to pay, either go somewhere else or stay home.

Half the world doesn’t get three square meals a day, and we bitch and moan because we have to pay a bit extra to support our already extravagant lifestyles! Exercise your choices!

I refuse to pay the surchage,I just go somewhere else or not at all.

While I do have a part concern over revealing the employer concerned, as it has happened over many years and now appears to be investigated, I will name them as Pizza Hut. I have had a dispute ongoing for over 12 months over the payment of proper penalty rates or proper pay for work performed, but keep getting told my contract doesnt have provision for penalty rates, or higher pay for higher duties. For more information on the unions investigating this very issue, check out http://www.greenleft.org.au/2005/635/34209 or google for “Isaac Nakhla”, another employee who went to the media a few years ago.

I have been told this policy has been adopted by all Pizza Hut restaurants, and I believe it extends to many other brands within the same industry.

The Workplace Ombudsman has my story now, I’ll post any follow-up tidbits here if/when they come to me.

Inappropriate10:36 am 15 Apr 09

It would be great if such businesses could be named and shamed – I’d prefer to spend my money at fair and decent establishments in this current market.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy10:08 am 15 Apr 09

I rarely go to restuarants (other than club type food), and never go on super popular days. If you want to enjoy this kind of lifestyle, pay the surcharge. If you don’t want to pay, either go somewhere else or stay home.

Half the world doesn’t get three square meals a day, and we bitch and moan because we have to pay a bit extra to support our already extravagant lifestyles! Exercise your choices!

So why dont/ cant you name them…??

Surely that is the point of a website like this. If they did do it then why cant you tell everyone who it was so people can choose not to go there….

Seriously. Are there any legal ramifications? And if it is fact, then why or how can there be any issue?

colourful sydney racing identity9:18 am 14 Apr 09

http://www.wo.gov.au – workplace onmbudsman

It’s been an oddity for as long as I can remember that Easter Friday, Saturday and Monday are all public holidays, but Sunday isn’t. I’m guessing it’s the old rule that Sunday can’t be a public holiday. Or maybe it’s because the easter bunny has to work on sunday, so we can’t have a public holiday then…

Mike Crowther said :

As to what you should be paid, there is an award. Awards are not a suggested scale of fees, they are the law. However, if your a casual insisting on your award entitlements can result in your phone just not ringing. I suggest you keep an accurate diary of when you worked and how much you were paid for it. (Also what role you were actually performing during the shift, retail and hospitality are notorious for mis-classifying the roles their staff actually perform.) When you leave you can present them with the bill for underpayment. You union will assist you with this. (You are in your union aren’t you???)

The ‘award’ Im covered by, Ive never been shown. After the workchoices stuff came in, my franchise owner rewrote employment agreements for staff removing penalty rates, holiday/sick leave, and various other benefits. The real issue is that 90% of staff employed under this agreement are under the age of 18 and just take what they get. The other issue is that I have been with the business for several years and therefore have a staff loyalty, whether misguided or not.

I also fall victim to the ‘mis-classifying the roles’ you talked about, often being asked to perform roles such as management that I am untrained and unpaid for (no more than my regular base rate). This is common practice in the industry but I feel the general public simply arent aware that small business (or even large business) are simply profiteering off these days.

The hospitality industry wont change , from the big hotels to the smallest cafes they

will exploit you. The best thing to do is get out , ASAP , and find something else.

There isnt any other option

Woody Mann-Caruso3:08 pm 13 Apr 09

I went through this crap at Dominos in Erindale last year for one long weekend or another (I don’t eat it, I just follow orders from screaming teenaged girls to buy it). It wasn’t even a public holiday – it was a Saturday, but according to the ‘manager’, the whole long weekend counts. I told them to stick their pizza where the sun doesn’t shine and walked off. The ‘manager’ was priceless:

“But…you have to pay for all of these!”
“No, I’m not hungry anymore.”

And a 100% markup for a coffee? F_ck. Off.

Yep, we do Steady Eddie.

Steady Eddie2:07 pm 13 Apr 09

Do we have another one of these f*cken pubic holidays on the Monday following Anzac Day (Apr 27)? Please tell me we don’t.

I-filed said :

trevar said :

Donewrong; did you buy the coffee or move on?

Sounds as though you struck a junior who didn’t get it.

I can’t rule it out, but she was very definitive about it, and the other two staff were crammed in beside her in close proximity overhearing our exchange and didn’t challnge her on it.

I would love it if another RA reader went in there today and reported back!

Mike Crowther11:21 am 13 Apr 09

Dvaey, The breakdown of Easter is as follows: We get ‘Good’ Friday off because that’s the day Christ is supposed to have died (about 3:00PM.) Saturday was traditionally not a public holiday because nothing happened that day (he was just dead). The story goes that his tomb was found empty (or he was spoken to by Mary M. depending on which Gospel you chose to believe) just after Dawn on Sunday morning (ergo, another holiday). A day off for Easter Monday was a later (welcome) addition but with no ‘historical’ rationale. Changing the actual Holiday from Sunday to the Saturday is a recent thing. (Although if like me you tend to work public hols, there is a benefit in getting P.H. rates rather than Saturday rates as Sun rates are rich enough as is).

Personally I don’t care about the surcharge so long as a business owner has the guts to admit that they are gouging and don’t try and blame it on their allegedly overpriced socialist staff. Profiteering has never been far from the hearts of local business in this town. (I remember that the price of batteries more than doubled during the bushfires.)

As to what you should be paid, there is an award. Awards are not a suggested scale of fees, they are the law. However, if your a casual insisting on your award entitlements can result in your phone just not ringing. I suggest you keep an accurate diary of when you worked and how much you were paid for it. (Also what role you were actually performing during the shift, retail and hospitality are notorious for mis-classifying the roles their staff actually perform.) When you leave you can present them with the bill for underpayment. You union will assist you with this. (You are in your union aren’t you???)

trevar said :

Donewrong; did you buy the coffee or move on?

Sounds as though you struck a junior who didn’t get it. The $3.50 probably applies to a sit-down, not a take-away. Anyone going into town today and could check? It wouldn’t be fair to the business to assume management would charge double. It simply wouldn’t make business sense.

According to our Chief Minister, Friday 10th, Saturday 11th and Monday 13th are public holidays: http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/2233/publicholidays2009.pdf

But you should still get Sunday rates on Easter Sunday, of course.

The thing that troubles me most is that the Chief Minister describes Holy Saturday as ‘Easter Saturday’. The days after Easter are called Easter days, not the days before. So, perhaps we are being told that workers get public holiday rates on Saturday 11 April, which is officially declared as a public holiday, as well as Saturday 18 April, which is Easter Saturday, which is also officially declared a public holiday.

Mighty generous!

canberra bureaucrat10:32 am 13 Apr 09

I was at the portrait gallery on Saturday, and asked whether the 15% surcharge was accompanied by staff being paid overtime. They produced a copy of the chief’s notice, informing us Saturday was a public holiday (http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/holidays), and insisted they were being paid overtime. Their manner suggested I wasn’t the first to ask!

I think from now on when I’m told about a surcharge I’ll ask whether the staff are getting penalty rates before paying (but I won’t cancel my order until after the makings are wasted!).

i always assumed the public holiday surcharges were to do with penalty rates for staff. if those penalty rates do not exist, then i would be interested in hearing from any business owners on RA what the justification for gouging your customers is.

I moved on and wandered around hopelessly for 10 minutes trying to find somewhere else, ended up at Tosolinis (always friendly and quick service there) and paid $4.90 including a 10% surcharge. Coffee was a 7.2/10.

Donewrong; did you buy the coffee or move on?

I have no idea about the legalities of this, but I do find it very disturbing. If only Stanhope were somehow responsible, this thread would already have 30 posts.

I just wanted to share a bizarre weekend encounter at My Cafe in Civic (the one that used to be a tobacconist….damn their closure!). I popped in to get a takeaway coffee on the way past. The girl told me that there was a $3.50 public holiday surcharge, bringing the cost of my large flat white up to $7.80. I explained that, no, I didn’t want to sit and be waited on, just wanted a takeaway. $7.80, she said.

Now 10% is one thing, and I would probably have paid an extra 43c without much concern. But where did $3.50 come from???

When I do shiftwork in the community sector, only those weekdays that are being taken as public holidays attract additional penalty rates (Saturday and Sunday attract other penalty rates anyway). So, this weekend, Saturday and Sunday are like any other Saturday and Sunday and attract 50% and 70% penalties respectively. Friday and Monday, which are public holidays in the legal sense, attract 100% penalty rates.

It depends on your industry to an extent, so you should contact your union because it looks like you’re being fleeced.

If it wasn’t your workplace, I’d say name and shame!

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