What's time away from your children worth? Why we need weekend penalty rates.

Aren’t we lucky to live in a 24-7-365 world?

Isn’t it incredible that you can buy groceries at 2am, have alcohol delivered to your door at midnight on a Thursday and order that essential coffee after your Sunday sunrise yoga class?

It’s deeply convenient that you can get anything you want, whenever you want it, with a swipe of an app on your smartphone. Including a new smartphone.

All of that is marvellous.

But there is a human cost to all of that convenience. And the human cost is that humans cost.

This week, the debate about how much humans should cost at different times of the week has been reignited by the Fair Work Commission’s decision on Thursday to slash weekend and public holiday penalty rates by 25 to 50 per cent. The conversation is around whether, in our “secular” society, it’s even a little bit reasonable that people who work on weekends get paid more on those two days than they do in the week.

One side says NO, it’s not reasonable, it’s a cash-grab that’s unfair to small business.

The other side says YES, it’s entirely reasonable, because weekends are not the same as weekdays.

It’s true in a world where we all want things immediately, all the time, it’s easy to imagine the calendar as a fluid blur of seven days,

But that convenient attitude doesn’t reflect reality for the vast majority of people.

In general our society still organises itself around a conventional five-days-work, two-days-off arrangement.

And for many, as the working week gets longer and longer, those two days of “rest” are more precious than ever, even if rest is the very last thing that ever happens.

Let’s be clear: The people working in the hospitality and retail sectors are not raking in an outrageous fortune.

The average wage of a retail worker in Australia is $19.16 per hour. The average for wait staff is $18.21.

No matter how many Sunday shifts you pull in on that kind of money, you are not living large.

What’s more likely is that those weekend shifts on a higher rate are what make it possible for you to live on your wage.

They are what makes it justifiable that when you are working on a weekend, you are missing out on time with your children. School, you’ll notice, is only in session Monday-Friday.

What’s time away from your children worth? What compensates for missing out on family time? How are you able to pay the increased cost of childcare on those days?

Penalty rates are what make it justifiable to be the family member who can never make the birthday barbecues, the weddings, the christenings.

Penalty rates are what make it feasible that the time you are NOT spending with your partner on those days is still working towards your future, rather than unravelling your relationship.

Do we want to aim for a world where there are no boundaries on the time you spend at work and the time you spend at home? Where there is no value placed on the time you spend off the economic treadmill?

Cafes all over our capital cities charge surcharges on Sunday to help them cover penalty rates. They also charge upwards of $17 for some toast with avocado on it.

If they aren’t making enough to pay someone to make my cold-drip on that day, is it a travesty? A violation of my human right to brunch?

If I can’t shop at 11pm, is it the end of civilisation as we know it?

We all want convenience. We all want immediacy. But many of us who want it are prepared to pay for it.

And many of us who want Sunday brunch and all-night trading are perfectly okay with the idea that for the people who are making it possible, there should be a pay off. And the pay off is a wage they can live on.

Weekends will be the same as weekdays when you can choose the days you send your kids to school. When every family celebration isn’t held on a Saturday evening, or a Sunday morning. When you can play in or watch your sporting team any time you want. And when you and your loved ones can synchronise your work calendars to maximise the chances of maintaining an IRL relationship.

Until then, the world is sticking to the 5:2.