Wednesday, August 15, 2007



A change of heart

The other news on youth rates this morning was the anouncement that Progressive Enterprises had reached an agreement with the NDU to reduce the use of youth rates and pay its younger workers the full adult rate after either 3 months or 200 hours. This mirrors the proposed amendments to the Minimum Wage (New Entrants) Amendment Bill (well, almost - its unclear whether its time with Progressive or time counted across any employer), and goes further in extending the adult rate to those under 16. It's a remarkable change of heart from a company which just last year was locking out its distribution workers; perhaps they've realised that so publicly screwing their workers is bad for their bottom line?