Save Weekend Penalty Rates

indonesia / philippines / australia | community struggles | press release Saturday April 28, 2012 20:22 by Workers Solidarity Network (Melbourne)

“You Can’t Haz Our Weekend” Protest

Save Weekend Penalty Rates: “You Can’t Haz Our Weekend” Protest

“It’s Friday, Friday…gotta get down on Friday. Everybody’s looking forward to the weekend, weekend.” Rebecca Black

But Rebecca, your song forgot to mention that not everyone looks forward to the weekend. Some people have to work in the shops, cafes, cinemas, banks and sporting venues that make our weekend what it is. It sucks, but long before the interwebz, unionised workers won us the right to hefty shift loadings to compensate for missing out on all the weekend fun with friends and family.

But now, some of Australia’s biggest NOT-LOLFATCATZ in the banking sector are scheming against our weekend. They’re lobbying to get rid of penalty pay rates on Saturdays and Sundays by proposing we define weekend hours as ordinary business hours. This will allow them to get away with paying weekend workers no compensation for giving up time that everyone else is enjoying to relax and unwind.

Why are they doing this? These NOT-LOLFATCATZ are making enormous profits. In the 2010 – 2011 financial year, Australia’s four biggest banks recorded the following net annual profits:

+ ANZ: $5.36 billion (19% increase)

+ Commonwealth Bank: $6.4 billion (13% increase)

+ NAB: $5.21 billion (23.6% increase)

+ Westpac: $6.99 billion (10% increase)

These NOT-LOLFATCATZ don’t really need such cuts to wages to keep afloat. They’re just plain greedy. If they get their way, we are essentially giving up the idea of a weekend. If we don’t tell the NOT-LOLFATCATZ ‘You Can’t Haz Our Weekend’ now, soon all their NOT-LOLFATCATZ friends in other industries will want a piece of the action and the weekend as we know it could disappear as quickly as a meme spreading through Facebook.

Join Workers Solidarity Network in showing in telling the fat cat bankers ‘You Can’t Haz Our Weekend’, by joining a protest at 11am Saturday 5 May 2012 outside the Commonwealth Bank on the corner of Bourke and Elizabeth Sts, Melbourne CBD. Come with your best meme-inspired banners, placards and costumes.

Click ‘attending’ and share on Facebook

Print a high resolution poster: b/w: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Byg4mpHxcVpMTjdyVUlYaD...Bxajg colour:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Byg4mpHxcVpMeU12c2ZoeV...NqS1k

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