Monday, April 2 2012This is highly contraversial, Some may be willing to work and get the Holiday Penalty Loading.
Major Grocery Chain Stores open on Boxing Day. It should be up to individual stores, whether or not they open. There is
an injustice here.

NSW Opposition Leader John Robertson, who accepted the petition on Monday, described the move as an insult to retail workers.

All retailers in NSW will be allowed to open on Boxing Day under new trading laws to be introduced into parliament.

Mr Robertson said the reforms meant workers would be forced to front up on Christmas to help stock stores.

“This is probably one of the most vicious and nasty attacks that this government has perpetrated on working people in NSW,” he told protesters outside Parliament House on Monday.

“It’s an attack on your right to spend time with your families.”

Premier Barry O’Farrell last week said workers could not be forced to work on public holidays.

But Mr Robertson says casual workers who say no to shifts on those days will have shifts cut or be let go.

“Anyone who has worked in retail … knows that if you’re a casual if you just don’t turn up or say you’re unavailable suddenly the shifts just disappear and you have no job,” he said.

“You can be forced to go to work on those days and it’s completely outrageous.”

He said the government had gone back on its commitment to looking after families.

“It’s an absolute insult to anyone who works in retail to now discover that Barry O’Farrell is playing lip-service to your opportunity to spend time with your families.”

Retail industry worker Galadriel Cladwell said workers would feel pressured.

“Casuals are afraid not to work on public holidays because they’re afraid the following week they’re not going to have any shifts,” she said.

“And family in my book comes first all the way.”

Mr Robertson said he would present the petition to the parliament once it reaches 10,000 signatures.