Hungry' Jack Cowin's solution to penalty rate stand-off

Date
    December 18, 2015
    Canberra Times

Consumers may have to pay more for a Whopper burger if Sunday penalty rates aren't reduced.

Hungry Jack's founder Jack Cowin says consumers will have to pay more for products such as fast food, restaurant meals and hotel rooms if a long-running campaign to reduce weekend penalty rates fails.   

Mr Cowin, the executive chairman of Hungry Jack's and chairman and major shareholder of Domino's Pizza Enterprises, says retailers may have to start charging a premium to recoup higher labour costs if weekend penalty rates are not reduced.   

"If society says we're going to charge you a penalty to employ people during those hours then it's fair the business has to pass that on to the customer," Mr Cowin told Fairfax Media in an interview marking the opening of his 400th Hungry Jack's restaurant on Friday.


Like Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Hungry Jack's founder Jack Cowin believes Sunday penalty rates are an anachronism.

"It's not popular [cutting penalty rates] and one of the traditions in this country is how do you maintain people's living standards – when you try to take something away from them they don't like that," Mr Cowin said.

"But why should somebody who works part-time on a Sunday get double what someone who works on a Monday when they're doing the same work.

"If people are unable to do away with penalties … the solution is an adaptation. If the business, in order to employ people and provide this service, is open on Sunday you may pay more … that to me is a sensible way to be able to deal with this."

The Business Council of Australia's call for an overhaul of penalty rates has been strongly endorsed by retailers such as Myer and Solomon Lew and fast food chains such as McDonald's, which says penalty rates are a major contributor to high youth unemployment.
More flexible workforce

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has promised to make penalty rates "front and centre" of his reform agenda, saying the workforce needs to be more flexible, but Labor and the Greens say reducing penalty rates would hit low-income and middle-class families already struggling with rising living costs.

Retail Council chief executive Anna McPhee said a survey of 1000 people in December found 69 per cent of those polled supported reducing Sunday penalty rates to the Saturday rate of time-and-a-half.

A draft Productivity Commission report in August recommended cutting Sunday penalty rates in certain industries to be in line with Saturday pay rates. The recommendations are now being reviewed by the Fair Work Commission.

"The majority of Australians have indicated they support the Productivity Commission recommendations, which we anticipate will be unchanged," Ms McPhee said.

Australian Retailers Association executive director Russell Zimmerman said general retailers were not in a position to charge more on Sundays: "people would come back on Monday".

"But if rates were reduced, as I believe they should, [retailers] have an opportunity to employ more staff," Mr Zimmerman said.

Mr Cowin, who is also a non-executive director of Fairfax Media, says in an era when consumers expect to be able to shop seven days a week, the current penalty rate regime lacks common sense and threatens Australia's ability to compete for international tourists.

"Where penalty rates are appropriate is where you're working the sixth and seventh day, or working from midnight til dawn, but a Monday and a Sunday should be business as usual in this industry," he said.

"If tourism is a growth area, it's really important that we get on top of this – if you can't provide the service and you don't have the hotel rooms we're going to miss out."

Mr Cowin said Hungry Jack's, which employs 18,000 people, is already looking at whether to raise prices on weekends to recoup higher wage costs and maintain service levels if double-time rates on Sunday are maintained.

"I think you will see more of that; it's being tested in various places," he said. "We are looking at it."

"If you say the labour cost is 30 per cent and work back you'd probably have to put things up 10 per cent on a weekend and people would probably pay that," he said.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 6:24am:


Society values weekends more. The threat to increase prices is nonsense, they have to compete in that space.

Kytro wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 6:28am:





its hard for me to tell the difference you know....most business in this day and age is 24/7 anyway....if we wish to compete with the rest of the world that is...

I dont know about burgers I would think thats the last thing I would worry about.. eating a burger on a Sunday is not exactly compulsory is it??....

its a choice....

its time commonsense kicked in...and we all stopped being selfish..... most peoples life doesnt stop on a Sunday anymore..

mostly schoolkids working there and they are happy to get a job on the weekend.

and the training at maccas and HJ's is first rate.

so pitiful that lefties want them at home on the couch, smoking pot and developing the beta role of the Durrrrrrr existence.

i suppose this makes them more easily recruitable to the left side (aka the chode scrub loser side) of a worthless life full of failure.

And if the price of junk food does go up, thats great, the fat scrubs with no self discipline who cant be bothered making a salad can lower their cholesterol

aquascoot wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 6:46am:


What universe are you posting from?

Because it sure ain't this one.

Kat wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 6:59am:


Collecting the dole isn't contract work.

Armchair_Politician wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 7:07am:



oh AP.. thats unkind... and not called for.

cods wrote on Dec 18^th, 2015 at 7:27am:



They are all, except for the internet banking, Essential services. Essential services have always been 24/hrs / 7 days. Nothing has changed.

DO they pay anyone penalty rates for you to do your internet banking on a Sunday Cods? Can you walk into your local council office to ask for a copy of your sewerage diagram on a Saturday afternoon? If you call an electrician on a Sunday I guarantee he'll charge you double or in some cases triple his usual call out fee.

Stop pretending government offices are open weekends. Apart from the essential services, and they haven't changed their working hours in at least half a century,  very few government or professional departments are open on weekends.