Owners of several hospitality venues in Melbourne have backed the Victorian government’s $246m trial of paid sick leave for casuals, after taking it upon themselves to provide similar benefits to their workers.
Under the new scheme announced on Monday by the premier, Daniel Andrews, eligible casual and contract workers will receive up to five days a year of sick or carer’s pay at the national minimum wage, or about $772.60 a week.
The announcement was met with swift criticism by business and industry groups, who described it as a “handbrake” on the state’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. The state opposition also indicated they could scrap the trial if elected in November.
Huw Murdoch, who owns Wild Life Bakery in Brunswick, said he has been providing paid sick leave to his casual staff since July 2020, when Victoria was in the grips of its second wave of Covid-19.
“It’s the morally right thing to do, to encourage staff to feel like they have that ability to take a day off every now and again,” he said.
“It actually makes sense from a business perspective. If I can stop someone coming in and giving six other people the illness that they have, that’s going to save me money.”
Murdoch has given his employees sick leave for any illness, and allows for five days a year, pro-rated, based on hours worked. He said there hasn’t been a huge number of staff taking the leave, and rejected claims by other business owners that the government trial will be abused by workers.
“I get so angry about this mentality that bosses and business owners have that is so cynical and so distrusting of their staff. They just don’t deserve to have them,” Murdoch said.
“A business that has that kind of relationship with their staff, that they think that their staff are going to somehow scam them out of a day or two of labour – I don’t have non-sweary ways of expressing my distaste for those sorts of people.”
Murdoch said the hospitality industry has a reputation for underpaying superannuation, wage theft and exploiting international workers.
“The cafes and restaurants complaining about this kind of thing, they’re also the businesses that are putting up posts or talking to the news about how it’s impossible to find staff,” he said.
“Maybe they need to take a bit of a harder look at themselves, because I haven’t had any difficulty finding staff during the whole past two years. I’ve kept most of my staff.”
Angie Giannakodakis, co-owner of Epocha, a European restaurant in Carlton where the government announced the trial, also said she paid casual staff who needed to stay home during the pandemic.
“We don’t have a lot of staff here, but they are part of our family,” she said.
Giannakodakis said she understood concerns within the hospitality industry about the future of the scheme, given the government has said any ongoing scheme would be funded by an industry levy.
But she said she felt it was important to make the hospitality industry somewhere people want to work.
“Let’s try to fix the problems in this industry, let’s find solutions and find a way to make it a vibrant industry that people want to be a part of rather than dismiss it right away,” Giannakodakis said.
However CEO of the Reddrop Group, Lincoln Wymer, which operates 20 supermarkets across Victoria and New South Wales and employs about 1000 people, said the trial was not needed at this point in the pandemic.
Wymer said some of its casual staff were paid to stay at home during 2020 and 2021.
“The last thing we wanted was someone to say, ‘Well, I’ve got to sneak in and work because I need the money,’ and all of a sudden the supermarket is shut and everyone’s not working,” he said.
He said trial might have been suitable early in the pandemic.
“It might have been a good short term thing for them to introduce in 2020 or 2021. But Covid-19 is not the beast that it was 18 or even eight months ago,” he said.
“We’re all double or triple jabbed now, we’re at the MCG in our thousands, hugging and kissing after every goal.”
Wymer said he wants to hire more part-time and full-time staff but has found many younger people, including students and backpackers, enjoyed the freedom of being casual and able to take days off for special occasions or to travel.
He also noted casuals already received a 25% loading in lieu of paid sick leave and carer’s leave.
“We’re trying to get people in the industry. We have to look after them as much as we can.”
