Workers welcome holiday debate

The country’s largest union is welcoming news that a proposal for a fourth week’s annual leave for all workers is to go to a select committee.

The EPMU has been campaigning for more than four years for at least four weeks’ leave for all workers, and has promised to support PCP MP Matt Robson’s private members’ bill.

National secretary Andrew Little said that having the bill go to the select committee would provide the opportunity for public debate.

“We intend running a public, political and industrial campaign next year on the fourth week’s leave,” he said. “Having a select committee consider the matter gives us another opportunity to put our argument.”

The union says that giving a fourth week’s leave to those workers who only got three now would cost less than $350 million a year, and would partly compensate workers for the fact that they now worked much longer and harder than they did in the 1970s when the third week’s holiday was introduced.