Comments on: Festive fare pay

By: Warwick

Warwick — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 03:28:55 +0000

Let’s see a true separation of church and state. Christmas and Easter are both based on religious…crap. There should be no laws regulating the voluntary exchange of value for value at either of these times.

Employers, employees and customers who do not believe in a mystical super being should not be punished.

By: marsboy1

marsboy1 — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 23:29:37 +0000

umm, maybe the owners want a break too. Just like their “workers”. As an aside dont think the expression “workers” is so derogoratory and just smacks of perpetuating the myth of the so called class system?

By: clara

clara — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 06:29:10 +0000

Well I won’t answer that question because I think we have (re)established the pointlessness of ad hominems (yes I know I started it).

For the record I did not say business owning was easy, but that the proportion of total overheads that have to go to public holiday pay is quite low in the scheme of things to worry about. In fact, McD’s used their “no holiday surcharge policy” as a marketing ploy -sometimes the market does cause the right moral decision!

From my experiences in the industry, hospo workers have for years been unfairly treated in terms of holiday pay. Whether or not you believe public holiday regulations should exist in general, the old regulations undoubtedly discriminated against hospo staff and casual staff in general.

By: David Farrar

David Farrar — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 01:36:44 +0000

Ha Ben thinks I am eating in foreign restaurants. Lunch in Canada every day is from a giant casserole pot in the office for all the campaign workers. And dinner is usually a pita sandwich/roll.

And Clara yes I have worked as a kitchen hand. And have you ever been a business owner as you think it is so easy?

By: Nichlemn

Nichlemn — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 08:20:59 +0000

The main beef I have with all these extra regulations is the magical thinking it encourages in people. They actually believe that they’re getting a free lunch out of it. Costs have to be absorbed somewhere, and there’s only so much you can absorb in profits. Either you’re charging slightly more all year, or paying workers slightly less, or some combination of the above. To the average worker though, it seems like the Government is “giving them a treat”. It’s the same as the shoplifter’s fallacy.

By: clara

clara — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 06:11:44 +0000

David Farrar, I know from experience that your idea of “workers having choice” is not even close to the reality, have you ever been a hospo worker?

Also, as everyone seems to enjoy comparing us to Oz, when in Brisbane recently I noticed that surcharges were quite commonplace.

I think if public holidays are such a problem then owners need some budgeting tips

By: jgg

jgg — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 00:34:23 +0000

Hmmm - I tend to agree with Fraser. The impact on total costs of holiday pay is quite small and could be built into the general margin. Equally though - paying a surcharge may help people recognise that others are giving something up so they can eat in a cafe.

And waymad - well casualisation has been around a good deal longer than the obligation to pay time and a half on holidays. In fact it really got rolling under the Employment Contracts Act (of course the drafters didn’t realise contracts was a verb). As to employing relatives, again that long predates the present requirements. OSH has been the main influence on that tradition - making casual ad hocery much less likely due to the employer liabilities.

As an aside, I think its a good thing for kids to work in their folks business sometimes, provided they aren’t exploited. Children need to see the adult world of work and its really only the last two hundred years that kids haven’t been able to see and experience their parents work.

Lots of good stuff comes from education and ending child exploitation but we also need to recognise that kids need to see what their parents do and give it a go sometimes!

By: icehawk

icehawk — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 00:29:48 +0000

First, many cafes and restaurants are owner-operated. There’s a good reason they may want to close on Xmas or Boxing day which has nothing to do with profits.

Second, many cafes and restaurants are not in an appropriate place to catch the festive crowd. A cafe whose main income is the lunch crowd in the Wellington CBD, or a cafe in a mall that’s closed on Xmas day, may be closed Xmas day because they don’t get much of a crowd in rather than because of anything to do with holiday rates.

Third, it’s so nice to see that representatives of employers, and employers like DPF, are so concerned about the employee’s rights, in paticular their right to not get holiday pay. Good of them to stand up for the employees rights in this way, since the employees representatives seem so lax about working for this important right. We know it’s because the employers care so much.

By: Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 23:14:43 +0000

Yup, I’ve been charged public holiday surcharges in a cafe before…i scarcely noticed, I must say. Buying lunch out is a luxury anyways…

By: fraser

fraser — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 22:53:31 +0000

The big question that i dont get is why are all the businesses bitching about this and adding a surcharge in the first place?
Im sure no business owner wants to inccur additional costs but there is a lot to be said for treating your workers well and recognise what they are giving up to help your business make $$, they do tend to make you more $$ when they feel good about working for you.
Also the surcharge?! Why arent business owners simply factoring in the cost of staying open on the stat holidays into a yearly budget? I presume its how other business costs are accounted for. This would have a two fold effect, 1, customers wouldnt seek places offering no surcharge and 2, the extra costs would be absorbed over the financial year with a minimal impact on current pricing.