Updated August 18, 2018 06:47:24

Photo: Dozens of small clubs across Australia are fighting to retain full penalty rates for their staff. (Getty: SolStock)

There's the Hat Head Bowling Club, the only licensed venue in the town of 326 people, nestled behind a sand dune on the mid north coast of NSW.

The Lithgow Workies Club, the oldest registered club in NSW, formed in 1887 by a small group of railway workers.

The "pokie-free, child friendly" Blackwood Community RSL in Adelaide. And Canberra's Burns Club, which, in the 1920s, began its celebration of Scottish culture with readings of the poet Robert Burns.

They are among more than 100 rebel clubs across Australia who are fighting to retain full penalty rates for their staff.

In a significant rift within the licensed clubs industry, the dissenting clubs are challenging a move by their umbrella body, Clubs Australia, to have penalty rates reduced by the Fair Work Commission (FWC).

They argue that their staff are valued, and so is each club's role in the community.

They are also accusing Clubs Australia, which is funded by membership fees from the clubs, of not consulting them.

Clubs Australia represents more than 6,500 licensed clubs. In a case currently before the FWC, it's applying to have the Clubs Award abolished, and to have club employees brought under the Hospitality Award, which had penalty rates reduced by the commission in February.  

Under the Clubs Award, Sunday rates are currently 175 per cent for full-time and part-time staff. They would come down to 150 per cent, while Saturdays would be cut from 150 per cent to 125 per cent.

Clubs Australia told ABC RN that while clubs can always pay their staff more if they want to, smaller clubs are struggling, and can't afford current penalty rates.

There has been a mixed response from retail and hospitality workers affected by penalty rates changes.

In a written statement, it said clubs should be on a level playing field with hotels and pubs.

"It is not fair to expect a regional bowling club to pay bar staff higher penalty rates than Sydney's Star Casino," the body said.

But Jo Schofield, the national secretary of United Voice, the union representing club staff in the case, says Clubs Australia has not produced any evidence to show clubs are being disadvantaged by the pay disparity.

And some of the smaller clubs aren't persuaded by their peak body.

They are worried they will lose the few staff available to them.

'For the good of the community'

Clubs don't get much smaller than the Binjour Bowls Club, with 43 members.

The town sits halfway between two small towns in Queensland: Gayndah and Mundubbera.

Photo: In some places, the bowls club is the only licensed venue in town (Getty: Grant Faint)

In a brief submission to FWC vice-president Adam Hatcher, the club's board secretary, Sandra Stott, said that in Binjour, there's "a school, bowls club, farms and a few houses, nothing else".

She wrote that her club needs to keep its staff, "not only for the good of the club but also for the good of the community".

The individual club submissions have been steadily arriving on the FWC website since two weeks of hearings began in early July.

Many are templates, written by United Voice, the union representing club workers. The template submission says the club does not support the application by Clubs Australia to revoke the Clubs Award, and supports the current penalty rates under that award.

"Our staff are highly valued by our Club Members, Management and Board and in our local community. We do not wish to see them face a pay cut from a reduction in weekend and public holiday penalty rates," the submission says.

Photo: The Lake Conjola Bowling and Recreation Club in New South Wales is among the rebel clubs (Facebook: Lake Conjola Bowling and Recreation Club)

The president of the Revesby Workers Club in western Sydney, Daryl Melham, a former federal Labor MP, also added that "respect for our staff is an important part of our community values".

Others, such as the CEO of the Port Macquarie Golf Club, Daniel Constable, criticised their parent body.

"The Club is concerned about the lack of consultation with member clubs before the application was made by Clubs Australia," he wrote.

Phil Kelly is the general manager of the Kingscliff Beach Bowls Club on the NSW Tweed Coast, which employs 44 people.

He wrote a strongly worded letter saying he was "bitterly disappointed" with the decision of Clubs Australia to "sell out the Clubs Industry Award".

He said he asked more than 30 NSW club managers about a Clubs NSW claim that they had consulted, but "not one of them had any contact in relation to this issue". 

Clubs Australia is operated from the Clubs NSW office in Sydney.

In their statement, the association said it had "canvassed opinion across the industry nationwide and has found significant support for the abolition of the Clubs Award".

An industry divided

Peter Cooper, the senior industrial advocate with the Club Managers' Association, told RN he'd "not heard of any club in Australia putting their hand up and saying we want to abolish the Clubs Award and avoid penalty rates".

He said that in decades of working with the clubs industry, he had "never seen it so divided".

There is also concern about the image and standing of clubs.

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Shane Berry, CEO of the Moe Racing Club and the Bairnsdale Sporting and Convention Centre in Gippsland, Victoria, wrote to the FWC that he was "horrified to learn that Clubs Australia have the audacity to apply for such a major change".

"Especially when that change goes against the absolute fabric in which Clubs pride themselves and the industry which they apparently represent," he wrote.

Gaming is a significant earner for clubs. The gaming industry has frequently argued, as it did in the Tasmanian election in March, that poker machines are a major contributor to local employment.

This is Club Australia's second attempt at reducing penalty rates. It had applied to have them reduced in the broader penalty rates review, but the FWC declined that application.

"United Voice believes that it is inconceivable that, having failed in their original case, Clubs Australia should be given another opportunity to pursue cuts in penalty rates for their workers by attempting to merge into another award," the union's Ms Schofield said.

The FWC hearings are expected to resume in late October.

Topics: clubs-and-associations, lifestyle-and-leisure, community-and-society, work, business-economics-and-finance, industrial-relations, australia, kingscliff-2487, port-macquarie-2444, sa, adelaide-5000, qld, gayndah-4625, act, canberra-2600, lithgow-2790, hat-head-2440, nsw

First posted August 18, 2018 06:30:00