Saturday, May 14, 2011

Nope, No Inflation here

$66,400 (Sixty Six Thousand and Four Hundred Dollars)

This is the minimum cost under the current award of a pub Driveway Attendant. ("Driveway Attendant" is the groovy new official name for what is known in the vernacular as a "Bottleshop Boy")
Bottleshop Boy is the most unskilled & low paid job in a pub.
Bar staff cost more.

Does anyone think I am doing anything but looking over the staff roster with a beady eye?
Does anyone think that this sort of minimum cost for unskilled labour (usually the job is filled by lads who've just left school) is not going to lead to some serious introspection on Sunday & late trading?

No wonder half the restaurants in the nation were unable to pay the new penalty rates, and instead closed for the whole week over Easter.

The new "Fair Work" Act is not going to lead to unskilled & shift workers being paid more, it is going to lead to those who need it most not having a casual or other job.

Oh, and the country will be a wasteland of closed shopfronts after 5pm, and on weekends.

6 comments:

kae said...

WTF?
I am paid for what I know, and how I apply that knowledge (academic admin), where I've been working for 17 years... and I get 52 plus super.

Again.

WTF?

That bottle shop clerk would be under a state award, too.

WTF?

Sackerson said...

Converted to UK pounds that's £43,448.

Much more than the top of the scale for a full-time teacher without special responsibilities BUT sufficiently skilled to break through to the "Upper Pay Scale"(post-16 requirements: 2 years A level, 3 years university, 1 year teacher training, 1 year on probation, 8 further years' experience; salary £36,756).

May I apply online, please? I'll even clean the dunny.

Boy on a bike said...

Holy snapping duckshit, Batman. Why didn't I know this when I was at uni? I would've killed for a job like that.

I have a teenage loafer lounging around the house - can I send him your way in a few years?

James said...

Are you sure you just haven't been misinformed by a labour representative? The driveway attendant rate seems to be about $40k from what I can find on the net.

Kay said...

You've got to be kidding me! Teachers don't make that much in most places. I can see a lot of people who'll be wanting to move to Australia now.

Mine Host said...

Kae: State awards have been abolished (excepting those employers who are sole traders or govt depts.)

BOAB: Thank you for the gracious offer, however we already have loafing teenagers aplenty in my neck of the woods. Please send someone who prefers to, you know, actually work!

James: I'm more inclined to canvass the possibility that your google-as-a-scientific-instrument research method may have left you misinformed.
I know my own profession!