It would seem that the largest employer group in Australia is pushing to cut the minimum-hours rule for retail workers and wants no restrictions to be place on the age of young workers entering the workplace, so long as that “employee agrees”.

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The intervention by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry precedes hearings in Fair Work Australia with one initial case listed for Thursday.

When the awards were being revised, the minimum hours in retail rose from two to three hours, this has led to the speculation that it was for this reason that many staff members were laid off.

ACCI and two other retail groups have stated that this is unacceptable and that this needs to be reduced for casual and part-time workers. They also cite that there should be a removal of all restrictions on minimum hours for school-aged workers “if the employee agrees” and the ”business circumstances require”.

Chief Executive of ACCI – Peter Anderson said that it was important that young people were not left of out employment opportunities due to inflexible hiring award rules. It comes after Opposition Leader Tony Abbott last week said there should be no minimum-hours rule for young workers.

Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association national secretary Joe de Bruyn rejected the push. ”If there were no minimum starts for young people there would be exploitation galore in the retail and fast food industries,” he said.

”It would come at the expense of the employment of adults and other people who are more permanent in the workforce than schoolchildren are.”

Mr de Bruyn said there was ”no serious argument” from retailers about the minimum start rule until reports emerged of a hardware employer in Terang who said he had to lay off young staff as there was only 1½ hours’ work for them after school. But that employer, Mr de Bruyn said, was also breaching the award that existed under WorkChoices