FAIR WORK RULING A WIN FOR COMMON SENSE
21-June-2011
A Fair Work Australia decision to ease minimum engagement requirements for casual work by school students has been welcomed by Member for Indi, Sophie Mirabella MP as a win for local working students.
Prior to the Fair Work decision, Labor’s policy required retailers to offer student workers a minimum 3 hour shift, which prohibited many local businesses from engaging student workers after school.
“Small retail operators and school aged workers will be celebrating this decision,” said Mrs Mirabella.
“Labor's ridiculous minimum engagement regulations forced hundreds of local retailers to lay off youth workers that were employed to work short, after school shifts. Employers, students and parents were calling my office dumbfounded.
“If it suits the worker and it suits the employer, why on earth would the Government tell you it can’t happen?”
The Fair Work decision comes after more than a year of campaigning and three rounds of national arbitration. Mrs Mirabella spoke on the issue in Parliament in February last year and says the decision leaves her vindicated.
“I have been calling on the Government to remove these absurd regulations for some time. I know that Labor and the Unions will be very unhappy and quite embarrassed by this decision because they had ridiculed anyone who was willing to speak up on the issue.
“When the Coalition called for the removal of the three hour minimum engagement rule last year, the ACTU called it ‘a terrible attack on the rights of casuals and young people’.
“This decision doesn’t attack the rights of young people, it protects the rights of young people to work,” Mrs Mirabella concluded.