When I left school I worked as a Christmas casual at David Jones for several years running.
Aside from a short stint in lingerie, I worked mostly in the cash desk counting up the money from the tills.
![The penalty rates cuts disproportionately target women in work.](/web/20170225172145im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/1/r/s/q/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guk5hm.png/1487912103083.jpg)
As I was only 17 when I started, my hourly rate was pretty low – about $7 an hour. Penalty rates on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays were what made it all worthwhile, so that I could manage to save a bit for the year ahead at university.
I know from experience the decision by Fair Work Australia to cut penalty rates will hit young people hard.
It's also a huge blow to working women.
It's likely to make our gender pay gap even worse, because the cuts disproportionately target women.
To recap, Fair Work Australia has decided to lower Sunday and public holiday penalty rates for the Hospitality Award, Fast Food Award, Retail Award and Pharmacy Award. For the Restaurant Award, Sunday penalty rates are unchanged but the public holiday rates are cut. Meanwhile, Fair Work left the door open to review the Hair and Beauty Award if an employer takes it on.
Everyone knows that most hospitality workers, shop assistants, hair dressers and beauty therapists are women. If you don't trust the evidence of your own eyes, you can also look at the official figures.
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency reported on the gender composition of the workforce by industry in 2014, using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
In the retail trade, 56 per cent of employees are women. In accommodation and food services, it's 54.3 per cent.
But it gets worse.
Weekend shifts are particularly prevalent for people working in part-time roles and casual jobs.
Guess what?
Not only are the retail and hospitality industries dominated by part-time and casual employment, but in both cases women are much more likely than men to be working part time.
In the retail trade, 32.4 per cent of the workers were women working part time, while 28 per cent were men working full time. Some 23.6 per cent were women working full-time, while only 15.2 per cent were men working part-time.
In hospitality, 33.5 per cent of workers were women working part time, while 20.8 per cent who were women working full-time. For the 45.7 per cent who are men in this industry, it was roughly even for full-time and part-time work.
There's long been an argument that the decline of religion in our society means that Sundays are now exactly the same as Saturdays. Fair Work didn't exactly buy this as in most cases it trimmed Sunday penalties but not all the way down to the level of Saturday penalties.
I actually think the argument has merit, but that doesn't mean the solution is to cut Sunday penalty rates.
Both weekend days incur a social penalty – it's time for friends, family and community – so people need incentive to work. Ditto for public holidays.
People deserve an extra reward if they are to work both days on the weekend.
I am sceptical about the mooted benefits for small business. One of my good friends used to run a jewellery shop in the 1990s and she tells me she only ever wanted extra staff when penalty rates applied, because that's when customers wanted to shop.
"If you're worried about an extra $80 per person [as it was at the time] because of penalty rates, you've got a bad business," she said.
Equalising Saturday and Sunday doesn't have to mean cutting to the lowest common denominator of current Saturday rates. It could mean lowering Sunday rates but raising Saturday rates to an average of the two.
That way our lowest paid workers wouldn't miss out.
A cut in penalty rates isn't anything to do with equalising Saturday and Sunday and whether or not we go to church on a Sunday. It's actually just a pay cut for young people and women.
Caitlin Fitzsimmons is the Money editor for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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