Blog Entry 1: Neo-Liberalism Policies in Practice

15/08/2014

As I'm sure many of you have experienced at one stage or another in your life, it isn't always easy to:
a) land a nice job
b) make enough money from said job.

I'm currently scouring the job market for a gig that fulfils both a) and b) with little success, and according to the article in the link bellow, achieving b) could become more difficult.

Penalty rates need to change, says Abbott government minister

http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/penalty-rates-need-to-change-says-abbott-government-minister-20140812-102zi8.html

According to this article, which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on August 12 2014, the Abbott government is looking to 'lower penalty rates paid to millions of workers on Sundays and public holidays'. Said penalty rates reward casual employees double pay, which the Assistant Infrastructure Minister Jamie Briggs has labelled as unfair on small businesses. In the article, Briggs stated that: "we cannot go on in a society where we are charging people on a day which is a normal operating day, double what you would on any other”.


These claims by the current government underline the shift away from the "Third Way" philosophy held by the previous government, who via the Fair Work Commission established the double pay penalty rate scheme, towards a more neo-liberal way of governing employment relation laws. The major reason underlined by Briggs in the article behind why the penalty rates needed to be lowered was that the current level cripples the competitiveness of Australian businesses, particularly those of the small variety.
So why is it so uncompetitive for Aussie businesses to hand out a little bit more cash money on Sunday's and public holidays? After all the casually employed or often the ones who need it most, uni students! Well, according to the graphic below, Australia has one of the highest minimum wages in the world. The high cost of labour in Australia is one of the key hinderences to Australia's international competitiveness, hence why neo-liberal employment relations policies such as scrapping double pay penalty rates are particularly in vogue at the moment.



  

Source: http://visual.ly/real-hourly-minimum-wages-around-world

So as I drop my resume around town next week, I will be doing so with a heavy heart in the knowledge that the forces of competition are denying me the opportunity to earn $48 an hour for stocking shelves at the IGA on a bleary eyed Sunday morning.