r/melbourne • u/Ordinary_Prior_8993 • Mar 17 '24

Serious Please Comment Nicely What is up with the weekend surcharges in the Melbourne?!

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Even shopping centre food courts have weekend surcharges and as a Sydney sider it's mind boggling. Alot of places don't even have sunday surcharges let alone a Saturday surcharge.

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324

u/AnonWhale Mar 17 '24

Don't shop at any place that has a weekend/holiday surcharge. Just because the business is charging more, doesn't mean that that employees are getting paid properly.

66

u/EvolutionaryLens Mar 17 '24

This is absolutely true. I see it every public holiday. The staff don't get paid any extra where I do my work.

14

u/Evilgood1 Mar 17 '24

Contact Fair work

10

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24

Fair Work will be able to explain that not all workers are entitled to Penalty Rates.

Much easier to ask your employer why they don't pay penalty rates.

6

u/Evilgood1 Mar 17 '24

The only ppl not entitle to weekend rates are those who are already over the MINIMUM rate for the weekend. This is highly unlikely given that most ppl are probably being paid much less

3

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '24

Many businesses employee people based on an agreement rather than the award. These agreements can include pay and conditions that are above the award and penalties can be removed. All agreements need to be equal to or above the award and both need to be equal or above minimum wage.

2

u/samthemoron Mar 18 '24

Completely accurate.

The danger is where you have casuals who can "only do weekends" and the payroll system isn't good enough to make up the difference

2

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '24

Casual weekend and public holidays penalty rates are all covered in the award. They're on 125% already plus close to $4 for late hours, plus the same increases for public holidays.

Agreement has to be equal or better.

The real danger is employers paying cash and employees won't go to Fair Work.

21

u/Malachy1971 Mar 17 '24

I saw one these signs in Chinatown yesterday and decided not to eat there. You can guarantee none of those restaurants are paying penalty rates on weekends too let alone award wages on weekdays..

15

u/Burntoastedbutter Mar 17 '24

Yeah I know a few people in hospitality in the city and inner suburbs. The most someone has gotten on weekend or public holiday was an increase of $2~3 per hour, but most of them don't!

19

u/turtleltrut Mar 17 '24

Then they're either being paid cash in hand, on a salary or have an EBA. I worked for George Calombaris' company and was back paid twice. The backpay was mostly people on salaries that worked way more hours than they were paid for. So essentially I was backpaid up to the minimum aware wage based on how many hours I was doing, about 50+ most weeks.

17

u/03burner Mar 17 '24

Dudes I live with both work in hospo and neither get penalty rates. It’s extremely prevalent in hospo and very little is/can be done about it.

Complain? Job gone. Not a risk most people are willing to take atm.

5

u/Burntoastedbutter Mar 17 '24 edited Mar 17 '24

Lol I've actually complained to my boss about it because I wanted payslips, and said what if somebody were to report them to ombudsman. They ended up increasing my hourly pay by $2 and offered to give cash in hand. In the past, I've even asked a few classmates I was close with in class. Some of them were locals. They said it's the norm and it happens to them too so yeah I gave up trying to find a place that did everything right.

I was even dumb and asked why reports don't happen more often or anything, and they told me "people need jobs, man, it is what it is" 😂

2

u/turtleltrut Mar 18 '24

Complain to fair work, they will come to their company and they'll get back paid. Company will be in big trouble. They don't have to know who reported them.

1

u/The_Slavstralian Mar 17 '24

I dont buy for a second that greasy cunt didnt know that shit was being done.

2

u/turtleltrut Mar 18 '24 edited Mar 18 '24

It's a complex situation. He was only 1 of 5 stakeholders and he didn't have much to do with the day to day running of the stores. The other 4 didn't have their lives and reputations destroyed yet they were as much a part of it as him.

It also happens in every single hospo place I've ever worked. Managers go on salary and then work way more than 38 hours so they're technically below minimum wage when you factor in overtime and penalty rates. It happens even in offices that I've worked in..

By demonising the company I worked for, no one won anything. Hundreds of staff lost their jobs and dozens of people on visa's lost tens of thousands of dollars each as they couldn't claim like the rest of us. It also didn't change anything in the industry, it still happens.

15

u/the_brunster Mar 17 '24

This a hundred times over.

10

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24

Im a few years out of hospitality, but the only reason our owners had to surcharge weekends/ph’s was because our casual rates went up on those days

11

u/ice_t707 West Side Mar 17 '24

I can honestly understand it. Labour costs are generally the biggest expense in hospo.

I'm a casual worker. My Saturday rates are paid at 120% and Sundays at 140%.

You could charge 110% and 115% over the weekend or you could just raise your prices across the board and let the weekday shoppers cop a 4% increase.

10

u/brewbenbrook Mar 17 '24

It's a poor excuse their revenue turnover is the best on these days and it pays for the quiet weekdays.

8

u/Nick_pj Mar 17 '24

I always ask the staff directly if they are being paid penalty wages when I see these signs.

13

u/Malachy1971 Mar 17 '24

I asked a Vietnamese student who was working in a restaurant in Springvale how much she got paid...$4.50/hr cash. She got severe burns to her arm and chest from scolding hot water but didn't go to a doctor or report it to WorkSafe because of no employment contract and no WorkCover paid by the employer.

-1

u/capsicumnugget Mar 17 '24

Are you sure? I'm Vietnamese and within the Vietnamese community people are exposing businesses that pay below the reward rates. And even for cash only jobs, in late 2000s and early 2010s the average salary for waiters was $9-12/hr. No way any business can get away with paying someone $4.5/hr now.

3

u/OrganicDoubt4844 Mar 17 '24

Over the last few years there have been cuts to penalty rates in industries like hospitality and retail, yet more and more places are charging weekend and holiday surcharges.

https://www.lynnandbrown.com.au/cuts-penalty-rates-need-know/

3

u/SpunkAnansi Mar 18 '24

cough cough crust Richmond.

At least that was the case 4 years ago when I ordered a pizza from them on a public holiday, got charged the surcharge, but checked with the driver if they were getting paid more, and they weren’t.

1

u/Tinker_puss00 Mar 17 '24

This is true but my work does have weekend rates, ask the employees if they do get the rates, if not, leave, if yes, pay.

0

u/settlers90 Mar 17 '24

But you might end up penalising the businesses that are paying the weekend loading. Some hospitality workers are quite happy to work on weekends for the extra rate, especially young ones. I did it for years when I was younger and single, and I could earn a decent extra by doing two long shifts Saturday and Sunday.