4 day weeks imo.

I know it's harder to organise weekends camping and/or Skiing and stuff because the weekends are now work days... but I don't mind them being work days.

Getting extra pay on Sundays when I was a shitkicker at Coles was awesome though, would be a shame if other young people in need of extra booze money miss out.

Im of to minds, i like the idea, because it will mean more shops will be open and more importantly prices should in theory go down since they dont have to pay penalty rates..

on the other hand there is always this nagging feeling that if this becomes law, then it will be exploited..

weekends are a thing of the past in most industries.. people should have their ordinary hours of work i.e. 38 hour week but weekend penalty rates are bullshit.

as long as you get A weekend, why does it have to be on the weekend?

I guess the main thing is people with school aged kids, which is a lot of workers.

I'm totally in favour of four working days of slightly longer hours. I currently do 5x7.25; I'd happily do 4x9.25.

Particularly in Melbourne, we really do need to do something to start staggering the operating hours of different industries. We need to do something to ease peak hour traffic and congestion. Why can't we make professional hours say 6 til 2, and retail becomes 10 til 6? Education could be 9 til 3, and I'm sure there'd be many IT workers happy to do 11 til 7. I'm just picking random numbers.
Right now, I have to get shopping done on Friday evening, or Saturday/Sunday, and usually all my social activities are on the weekends.

A four day week would be a great start. But staggering everything would be better.

All I would like is the grocery shops not close at 5pm on a Saturday..

This already happens south of the border and I'm not talking about the major city areas either. I live in Olinda which is a good hour from the CBD and it's similar to a Montville or Maleny. I can go 5 mins down the road to Monbulk and their Woolies is open till 10pm 7 days a week.

I can go 5 mins down the road to Monbulk and their Woolies is open till 10pm 7 days a week.

And if you come down from the caves, you can make use of our awesome 24 hour Woolworths at Ferntree Gully.

used to live in tweed heads which has 2 24/7 coles. moved to brisbane in 1999 which back then didnt even open on sundays.

i already tend to work 730 to 6 not sure i want my normal day to be longer.

I just spent three years doing shift work. 24 x 7 , days, afternoons, evenings and graveyards. We rotated weekends off. The only good thing is getting time during the week to run errands like take car for service, go to doctor, shopping, cleaning etc etc. When there is nothing social going on, you really have a LOT of time to do stuff.

What I don't agree with is the loss of a penatly rate on a Sunday. It's a penalty because its a cunt of a day to work and most people don't have to. So for those that are forced into a roster system it's not fair to turn around and say you can't have any sundays off.

It's give and take.

In hindsight after years of working in hospitality and a 24 x 7 data centre. I am really enjoying having my weekends and public holidays to myself For family commitments and lots of other fun stuff I always missed out on working shift work.

I think Raven is onto a winner with the 'staggered start times' concept (I'm sure there are dozens unintended implications to this tho... think about the hospitality industry... it would dramatically change the way they'd have to do service, and the hours for example).

Other than that, I wish I had the flexibility to work 4 slightly longer days rather than 5 in a week... tho as a shift worker (manning a 24x7 operations team) that does sometimes occur (7.6 hour days during the week, and 11.5 hour days on w/e's)

Raven is all over it with the weekend thing.

I didn't think I'd notice it gone, but I'm working a roster that doesn't really have any regularity to it (which means sometimes not having a 'sat + sun' weekend for months on end.) so yeah, for those 'in the middle of the road' about to keep/dispose of weekends... consider how you manage your own 'work/rest' ratio now, then picture it without weekends.

For some, it's no big deal, but it means it becomes rather difficult to manage your social life (ie your friends all have their fun on w/e's because it's easy for them, asking people to do things on weekdays is often met with mixed results (even before you throw the whole kids aspect into the mix)



Has anyone else noticed the irony in this?
It's the financial sector getting all 'up in arms' about paying the loading for w/e's... how many of you have a bank that IS EVEN OPEN on a w/e?

(St.George do, I know that much, but seriously, this must be a minority thing in the banking world...)

I work 6-5 mon -friday.
I get 1.5 after 3.30 Mon-thursday
1.5 after 12:30 Fridays and 2x after 3:30.
On Saturdays we work 4 hours at standard rate then double time after.
im on $500+ a week as a 2nd yr sparky.

We were once at a stage were we finished at 12:30 Fridays and started 6 am on a Saturday til 10.
I can tell you that stopped quick smart.

I have no objection to having more open trading hours as long as they mandate that nights and weekends incur time-and-a-half to triple time for the poor sod who has to work it.

There are only a few 24/7 stores in the ACT now (a few Maccas and a K-mart of all things)

When Howard was in, most of the Coles and Woolies ran 24/7 to help people working shift work... since he left C & W have both rolled back to a handful of stores 'open til 11/midnight' 7 days a week.

Other than hospitality services and grocers... I really don't see a reason to keep stores open late at night (unless in a high traffic area... think CBD's and tourist type places etc)

as long as you get A weekend, why does it have to be on the weekend?

Yep, totally agree.

Do either of you work 'out of ordinary' hours atm?
Being a shift worker really opened my eyes to it, and whilst I'm inclined to agree with you on that point... do either of you have kids? (coz if I did I'm not sure I'd agree that working a w/e should be the 'same'.)

weekends are a thing of the past in most industries.. people should have their ordinary hours of work i.e. 38 hour week but weekend penalty rates are bullshit.

as long as you get A weekend, why does it have to be on the weekend?

I don't agree that they're a thing of the past - they're very much a thing of the present.
what might be thing of the past, is the common-place concept of absolutely not working on the weekend. this doesn't de-value the act of working on the weekend though, try and see past your own bias of disliking having to pay penalty rates (if that's what this is about)

ignoring any actual religious foundation, weekends are 'sacred' - back the fuck off :)

lol not everyone plays wow for a large chunk of their free time rev

Well if you have kids don't get a job where you are working weird hours. Don't get shitty at me, lol.

The solution seems to be to open schools that run from 4pm until 10pm to cater for parents working weird hours*


*Not a serious suggestion

You can't blame people for not buying from you though. No matter how long you stay open for. All part of business.

Actually all Im saying is that there is no more people than there would be if the hours were shorter...the only difference is the wage bill.

Many took a bank job cause they aren't open weekends, now they've had the goalposts moved. These existing employees didn't get a choice in the matter therefore I can understand if they get peeved at such.

So what. Why shouldn't banks be open on the weekend? Why should banks only be open on the weekdays?

EDIT: More like. many took a bank job so they can go out and get shit-faced on the weekend. That's exactly why.

72.5 hrs a fortnight here. Can work them any time between 6am and 6pm Mon-Fri.
Because a lot of what I do involves a team (especially any field work I do) my standard hours are 7-4. 9 day fortnight.

I say we all go back to the 70s or 80s and have some small weekend trading and that's it. People back then really knew how to work live not live to work.

Those types of jobs (retail usually) are opportunities for casual workers who need to work a little to make ends meet. They are great for school and uni students and due to a roster system are flexible.

Professions moving into a 7 day week is pushing things too far as there ends up not being a time to just turn off. As it is a lot of companies expect their employees to live by the phone and the email for 'emergencies' after hours and when you have a manager who works on a Tuesday requiring info from you when it's your day off then the pressure can build up.

Companies don't need to work longer; companies need to work more efficiently. A lot also need to chill out and realise they aren't changing lives, they are just making money.

I think people should be pushing in the other direction. I negotiated (do it or I leave ) to a 4 day week and couldn't be happier.

EDIT: More like. many took a bank job so they can go out and get shit-faced on the weekend. That's exactly why.

eh no, not everyone gets shitfaced every weekend. Beach, camping, trips , attending weeking sporting events & playing sports comes to mind.

I know you prolly love your WOW on the weekends so don't begrudge other people for wanting to have a normal life balanced around work. Imagine if you had a 9-5 job, a family, a mortgage & other time commitments that stopped you playing wow. You wouldn't be pleased.

weekends are a thing of the past in most industries.. people should have their ordinary hours of work i.e. 38 hour week but weekend penalty rates are bullshit.

as long as you get A weekend, why does it have to be on the weekend?

haha said by a typical cost watching employer....

4 day week would be awesome.

well if you have 2 days off during the week and your total work time in the given period is 38hrs what's the difference?

this was already answered in several replies

That's how most EBA's used to work where the working requirement covered weekend and out of hours work.

You care to elaborate on this? If you are saying most EBA's used to recognised weekends as just other days in the week and thus not worth anymore momeny provided you got 2 days off during the week, I'll say your full of shit. You might find a few companies that this was the case but it sure as hell isn't most. and It's certainly never been the case anywhere I have ever worked.

You want to seperate people from their friends and family then you are going to fucking pay for it. Time has a value to people and certain days have more value than others ie Saturday and Sunday when they can spend time with their friends and family. Aparently some people only recognise the value of these days and time in general as it relates to business yet are utterly blind to the value of the exactly the same thing to the average person.
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infi I am sure you'd love nothing more than to strip penalty rates off every single employee Australia wide. You'd probably be exactly the kind of boss that would line his own pockets with the savings rather than passing any of those savings onto clients too wouldn't you. Cause lets face it you are more valuable than them ....right?

Australia has always been a place where people work to live not live to work and frankly thats exactly how it should be. Peoples time has value to them like any other commodity you care to name has value to business.

End of the weekend?

Looking to grow mine thanks.

yep. i lived in Gladdie for 5 years.

worked for Transpacific. who i think bought GP before i joined. i ended up managing their waste contracts before the Cleanaway take over as a Key Account Manager. we had IS and Waste at Yarwun (Rio), QAL, BSL.

we also did Newlands, Collinsville, Abbot Pt, North Goonyella, Moranbah North, Burton. used to get to Glenden monthly for contract meetings. stayed in that fine motel! often did the back road from Moranbah up past Riverside, that was fun!

after Trans bought Cleanaway i transitioned into the Regional Managers role oversseing all these plus the cleaning contract at BSL and Cleanaways business in Rocky/Yeppoon.

plenty of work back in Gladdie but my mates tell me it's turned into another Moranbah. all prices have gone through the roof and infrastructure not coping.

what do you do?

Primarily i am a heavy machinery op mostly bridge and gantry cranes with plenty ofnyear experienxe driving forks upto 34t. In recent times i have been working in pipe manufacturing doing everything from coating crane op and some sand blasting so its kind of split between fairly heavy labouring work and machinery op. I have been driving cranes and forks for 20 years plus had my HR licence for a little longer. I can pretty much do anything or at least learn anything in any industrial environment since mentally i am kind of geared to that kind of work so most of it comes as second nature given i follow some basic principals with safety ect. I also used to run the odd vaccum truck or super suckers as we nicknamed them back then.

I wouldnt mind heading back to the tannum boyne area as i still have lot of ties to the area through friends. Trouble is without having a job to get me straight into work there it might be a little difficult. I know what youre saying about the price of things up there i hear daily from friends paying 550 a week rent for average housing and thats one of the things that would make it hard to head up there without already having a job in the bag so to speak.

At this stage i am aiming to get my old job back at Tyco water in Wacol but since there are no garentees of getting back ill have to wait and see. I think my chances are good since they have brought me back to work there 4 times since 07 when ever they needed the people. I have a good name there given that my attendance is always extremely good so i am hoping it works out.

was about to say Wacol is a great are for that stuff, heaps of sandblasting, and industrial manufacturing around there.
I currently work in Wacol/carol park. wiring demountables

HURRR DURRRR.

You can easily pick out the hardcore socialists on this forum. Businesses exist to make money, they aren't a community service. They don't exist to make employees rich and to spread money around. Socialists would love to live in a society like that.

They want everything for nothing.

I have an idea! LETS ALL GO "OCCUPY" A PARK AND PROTEST THAT PEOPLE ARE WORKING HARD TO MAKE MONEY WHILE WE SIT AND DO NOTHING!

good luck taipan. you should be right with those skills with all the construction going on around Brisbane.

that article is flawed because it misses the main issue regarding choice. employers should be free to choose when to deploy their capital, and employees should be free to work when they want. if the employee does not like the work arrangements being proposed by their employer they will leave that employer and goto another one that has better working hours or at least pays better for the inconvenient work.

the author of the article imagines brisbane circa 1970 when cafes were not open after 8pm, the only takeaway you could get was fish and chips, pizza and chinese, and no retail was open on the weekend. a black and white leave it to beaver land. and he tries to argue that the world was better off then. he is actually arguing for a system where employers employ LESS. i have never heard a more retarded luddite argument.

the customer is everyone, including pensioners, invalids, retirees and self-employed businesspeople. none of them get penalty rates - they do get impacted by the costs of inefficient work practices though.

You see Taipan you are that typical myopic selfish worker who is in it for themselves, expecting the govt to side with you. (And fair enough that you try that on, that is the essence of capitalism - everyone acting in their self-interest.) The difference is when it is state sponsored protectionism.

For example in my industry aged care which is 24 hours, much like power generation, street sweepers, road construction or or other essential services, the operator gets paid the same and charge the same for our service regardless of the time.

If a person chooses of their own free will to work a particular arrangement why should the government step in and require a higher rate to paid which is completely unnecessary, or uneconomical? This will in turn force up the price of that product. This is simply protectionism of certain interests in society at the expense of others.

Why it is that the only category of people who get preferential treatment for certain sacred blocks of time is employees? Why not small-businesspeople, dependent contractors, farmers, why don't they get penalties built into their arrangements courtesy of the government?

As to your argument about weekends being precious, well how can they be precious if people are already agreeing to work those hours? Did they just trade it for the money? Not so precious is it? So if the law was not there would they not negotiate that benefit via their trade union, or personally directly with their boss? (I can see that this very situation was being debated in another thread about overtime and callouts in the IT industry on this forum.)

Or if it is not actually that big of a deal will they just work for less pay? And if they agreed to that why would they if the worker did not think is reasonable? Why would you agree to pay $700 for a TV that is only worth $500?

Individuals are constantly making economic choices every day, whether be about how they spend their money or about how they make their money. And they should be free to do that without govt interference.

last edited by infi at 09:59:14 04/Apr/12

the contractor doesn't get paid the same amount - they just have to get it done.,

those rates are prescribed by government awards (which I am arguing is unfair), or by union agreements which is free choice.

You see Taipan you are that typical myopic selfish worker who is in it for themselves, expecting the govt to side with you.

Nice try mate but that sounds alot more like you than it does me. So I am just going to treat this as a pathetic attempt at a troll from you trying to be a bitch

For example in my industry aged care which is 24 hours, much like power generation, street sweepers, road construction or or other essential services, the operator gets paid the same and charge the same for our service regardless of the time.

Bullshit, you have people staying one night with you do you? I'd be willing to bet your charges are based over a period of time ie week, month or more and that charge would factor in the costs incured by being a 24/7 operation. If you don't you are an idiot or you are just outright lying.

If a person chooses of their own free will to work a particular arrangement why should the government step in and require a higher rate to paid which is completely unnecessary, or uneconomical? This will in turn force up the price of that product. This is simply protectionism of certain interests in society at the expense of others.

I guess you could call it a form of protectionism. It prevents unscrupulous employers and companies from exploiting workers who are ill equipped to protect themselves. Sounds ridiculous that some people can't stick up for themselves in the work place doesn't it yet we constantly hear of work place bullying and intimidation but you'd probably live in the land of unicorns and lolly pops where eomployers never ever employ those methods to get their way.

Why it is that the only category of people who get preferential treatment for certain sacred blocks of time is employees? Why not small-businesspeople, dependent contractors, farmers, why don't they get penalties built into their arrangements courtesy of the government?

If you think contractors don't factor in reasonable pay then you have your head up your ass. Try calling someone out to a job and see what you get hit with, actually Id expect you to know this anyway so what are you fucking playing at? As for farmers well what can I say thats as much of an all encompassing life style as it is a job and they hardly fit into any catagory with anything else.

But hey I could take a line from you and say if they don't like it do something else ... right? You think thats fair so don't now hold that up to try and make your point for you when clearly you have a blunt response for people in positions they or you may feel is unfair.

As to your argument about weekends being precious, well how can they be precious if people are already agreeing to work those hours? Did they just trade it for the money? Not so precious is it? So if the law was not there would they not negotiate that benefit via their trade union, or personally directly with their boss? (I can see that this very situation was being debated in another thread about overtime and callouts in the IT industry on this forum.)

People work weekends for the money obviously and everyone would have a price they considered worthy of giving up that time for. Dude seriously try getting anything done if you aren't willing to pay for it. As a guy in business Id expect you to know very well that everything has a price particularly time. As for you saying "not so precious is it" how the fuck would you know? Do you know whats going on in everyones life enough to know why have choosen to work the weekend or they may in fact feel they have no choice but to work it, no I don't think you do.

Or if it is not actually that big of a deal will they just work for less pay? And if they agreed to that why would they if the worker did not think is reasonable? Why would you agree to pay $700 for a TV that is only worth $500?

No need to repsond to this Cptn Lateral summed it up perfectly

HURRR DURRRR.

You can easily pick out the hardcore socialists on this forum. Businesses exist to make money, they aren't a community service. They don't exist to make employees rich and to spread money around. Socialists would love to live in a society like that.

They want everything for nothing.

I have an idea! LETS ALL GO "OCCUPY" A PARK AND PROTEST THAT PEOPLE ARE WORKING HARD TO MAKE MONEY WHILE WE SIT AND DO NOTHING!

So you'd agree that all money is all created out of debt against people/corporate personhood (hard working people like yourself), therefore there is no cash and the only belief is that money is the faith that it (the object) is worth something and thus it is only polymer/paper or 1's and 0's and which results in a tool of your enslavement? Maybe you'd prefer silver and gold?

the contractor doesn't get paid the same amount - they just have to get it done.,

I'm pretty sure you'll find the contractor will tender accordingly.

the contractor doesn't get paid the same amount - they just have to get it done., I'm pretty sure you'll find the contractor will tender accordingly.

Contractors definitely factor in night works (Other issues with the jobs) to their cost and will pay / charge accordingly.

Interesting story where

Indians don't need weekends, why should we?