www.workinglife.org.auIssue 15, October 2014

UNIONS have begun a renewed push for secure jobs with conversion of casual workers to permanent employment at the top of the agenda.

On 7 October – World Day for Decent Work – the ACTU announced it would be using the current review of Modern Awards to embed in all Awards a mechanism to convert casuals to permanency for all types of workers.

The move, which has been attacked by employer groups, picks up on one of the

key concerns about the casualisation of the workforce identified by the national inquiry into insecure work headed by former Deputy Prime Minister Brian Howe in 2012.

ACTU President Ged Kearney said it was unfair that many casuals work regular shifts and rosters but miss out on important entitlements like sick leave and annual leave.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are 2.2 million casual workers in Australia, or about 19% of the workforce.

“People are not just tools for employers to use – they have lives and families and deserve to be given the respect of decent, secure work,” Ms Kearney said.

“Casual employees, even if they are working regular hours, live with the knowledge that their jobs are not secure. This makes it harder for them to get loans, rent a house and get access to training and promotion opportunities.”

Ms Kearney said the clause would be cost neutral for employers, as businesses already pay a casual loading in place of entitlements

Continued page 4

Casual workers back on the agenda

by MARK PHILLIPS

Your work. Your life. Your news & views.

Heroes or villains?No union comes close to dividing public opinion like the construction division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.

They are loved by their members and loathed by the big building contractors and Coalition politicians.

Are they heroes or villains?

Read our special report: Pages 6-7

CFMEU health and safety officer Peter Clark, Melbourne, 10 September 2014.

Photo: Mark Phillips

GET IN TOUCHWant to know more or get involved? Contact our newsdesk by email at editor@workinglife.org.au or phone (03) 9664 7266. Or get in touch by Facebook (facebook.com/ThisWorkingLife) or Twitter (twitter/thisworkinglife).

Editor: Mark Phillips. Responsibility for election comment is taken by Dave Oliver, Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, 365 Queen Street, Melbourne 3000. .org.au

2 .org.au October 2014

FOR a generation which is smart, ambitious, hard-working and tech savvy, Generation Y sure does cop a bad rap.

Seems like Gen Y bosses and journalists spend half their life complaining about the (perceived) bad work practices of Gen Y. Yawn.

Well, today we turn the tables. Working Life spoke to three Gen Ys to

find out how they really feel about their crusty Gen X bosses. The results can be summarised in one word: OUCH!

1 You try to be coolRicky Gervais as David Brent in

The Office said it best, or possibly worst, when he said he wants to be: “A friend first, a boss second, probably an entertainer third”. Eek.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with everybody getting along at work, but don’t pretend we’d spend a minute with you if we didn’t have to. You’re not actually that interesting to us.

2Your dress sense is shockingFridays when you dress “down” are

the worst. The worst.Nothing, and we mean NOTHING,

is worse than a middle aged person in ripped jeans.

3You don’t know how to use your computer

You call this ‘cutting edge technology’. And you still can’t find the on button.

And instead of learning how to use the damn thing properly, you just ask us when you don’t know how to do something.

That’s what comes of growing up in an era when computers filled a city block, we guess.

4You complain about us switching jobs without

providing proper career pathwaysGen Ys change jobs every couple of years, blah, blah, blah.

We’ve heard it 100 times and while it’s partially true, that’s because there are no jobs-for-life like there were in the old days so hopping from job to job is more a survival strategy than a sign of disgruntlement or disloyalty.

But you know what? We are loyal at heart. Show a bit of

interest in us, spend a dollar or two on our professional development and we’re a very good chance of sticking around for the long haul.

5You’re just embarrassing on social media

We always hear that we Gen Ys need to be educated on “appropriate Facebook posts” and the rest of it. Well, the flipside is that you’re too formal and boring on social media. It’s a conversation, not a memo, you know.

6You palm off your responsibilities without

rewarding usOne of the sneaky new trends in modern management is to share data about the benchmarks which you need to maintain your generous salary.

We’re onto this trick. If you want us to think about your numbers as well as performing our specific daily tasks, it might pay to think about the numbers in our pay packet.

7Stop pretending to be our best friend. Just stop it

We Gen Ys are more resilient thank you think. We’ll cop a bit of criticism sometimes, even if we don’t like it.

But the one thing we really hate is a boss who’s too soft and too gutless to tell us what they really think.

Set the bar high and watch us sail over it. If that means getting tough, fine.

Ours is a generation that loves a challenge - really.

So challenge us!

At Work

7 things that Gen Ys hate about their Gen X/boomer bosses

by GREG KOMBI

ANOTHER Senate showdown is looming over government plans to wind back the Fair Entitlements Guarantee.

A Senate inquiry into the changes, which would cap redundancy payments under the FEG at 16 weeks, has split, with Labor and Greens Senators recommending against the changes.

It means that the fate of the changes will once again depend on how cross-bench Senators vote – an identical scenario to the Fair Work Amendment Bill, which is currently awaiting debate in the Senate.

The Fair Entitlements Guarantee is a government-underwritten scheme to ensure workers receive what they are owed if their employer collapses and has not made provision for workers’ legal entitlements, including annual and long service leave, severance pay, redundancy pay and unpaid wages.

Workers often bargain for entitlements above the minimum standard in workplace agreements.

Although employers are required by law to set these entitlements aside as an item on their balance sheet, some companies have spent them by treating them as an unsecured loan, leaving workers out of pocket when they go bust.

In 2012-13, 16,019 workers made a claim to the FEG scheme, and received an average payment of $16,333.

The government has moved to change the FEG following a recommendation from the National Commission of Audit in May. The government has also been influenced by business groups, who have claimed the level of redundancy protection under the FEG is excessive.

Introducing the Bill into the House of Representatives on 4 September, Education Minister Christopher Pyne said the changes to the FEG were necessary to ensure the future sustainability of the scheme.

“This level of protection is very generous by community standards,” he said. “It creates a moral hazard — it provides an incentive for employers and unions

to sign up to unsustainable redundancy entitlements, safe in the knowledge that if the company fails, the Fair Entitlements Guarantee and the Australian taxpayer will pay for it.”

Under reforms by the previous Labor Government, the scheme was improved to provide full redundancy pay for workers up to a maximum of $2451 per week of pay and four weeks of pay per year of service.

The government changes would take the scheme back to what existed before the start of 2011, with redundancy payments capped at a maximum of 16 weeks.

Unions told a short inquiry by the Senate Employment and Education Committee that winding back redundancy protections at a time when manufacturing jobs were

under severe pressure was “mean spirited in the extreme.”

The committee also heard from Reg Carmody, who was made redundant from his job at Bruck Textiles in Wangaratta in July, after 16 years of employment by the company.

He subsequently made a claim through the FEG because Bruck had made no provision for his entitlements, or those of the other 59 workers who lost their jobs.

“For me to be let go, without even any notice or any severance pay, was beyond brutal,” he told the inquiry.

“It is hard to describe how I felt having no job and no money to support myself. I was very anxious and there were still rent and bills to pay and food to put on the

Continued next page

3.org.au

New Senate battle looms over worker entitlements scheme

At Work

October 2014

by MARK PHILLIPS

How the Fair Entitlements Guarantee works‘Dave’ has been working for the same company for 17 years and earns $90,000 per annum when his employer goes bust, leaving nothing left for the workers.

He and his workmates have negotiated a redundancy package of four weeks’ pay per year of service as part of their enterprise agreement, so Dave is owed $117,692. Fortunately, the FEG steps in to cover his redundancy pay.

But under the changes, this would be capped at 16 weeks’ pay, worth just $36,212 – leaving Dave out of pocket by $81,480.

“For me to be let go, without even any notice or any severance pay, was beyond brutal.”

- Reg Carmody

WHEN things get tough the rich sell a beach house while everyone else may lose their

job, their livelihood, their home.Never has Amanda Vanstone spoken a

truer word but unfortunately the rest of her thoughts about the rich versus poor debate in Australia show just how out of touch the Liberals really are.

The former Howard Government minister’s opinion piece in Fairfax newspapers defending the so-called rich from the “rough deal” they receive in the media came just one day after the release of a report which revealed poverty was increasing, with one-in-seven Australians living below the poverty line.

The irony was overwhelming.Anti-Poverty Week is not the time for

clichéd discussions about the rich and the poor – it’s an opportunity to think about what we as a society value and the sort of Australia in which we want to live.

Australians fundamentally believe in the fair go, that everyone deserves the right to a decent job, universal healthcare, education and the social wage. These things are so important to our way of life.

But the reality is that the living standards we have fought so hard to

enjoy are under threat from a Federal Government that is out of touch with the lives of everyday Australians.

While Amanda Vanstone may be sick of hearing about the growing gap between the rich and poor – thousands of Australians live with that gap every day. They are not wondering if they will have to sell their holiday house, they are wondering how they are going to find the money to pay for their child’s school excursion or doctor’s visit.

The truth of the matter is that it is not just the unemployed living in poverty, the number of working poor in Australia is increasing and if we as a society are serious about addressing rising poverty and inequality, then we need to get serious about tackling insecure work.

We need to remember that people are not just tools for employers to use – they have lives and families and deserve to be given the respect of decent, secure work.

A lack of job security and irregular income can see people slip into poverty. What’s at risk is the emergence of an American-style working poor in this country – something that Australians overwhelmingly reject.

This is the sort of discussion that we should have had during Anti Poverty Week – a genuine policy solution that will benefit millions of Australians instead of rehashing tired clichés about the rich and poor.

Continued from previous page

table . . . I was so relieved to receive the money [from the FEG]. It meant that everything that I had worked for and accrued over 16 years of employment had not been lost.

“The redundancy payments I received through FEGS will, hopefully, give me the time to retrain and gain new valuable work skills, while allowing me to continue to pay rent, bills and loan repayments.”

In a dissenting report following a short inquiry by the Senate Employment and Education Committee, Labor Senators

Sue Lines and Deborah O’Neill said the government had failed to justify the changes to the FEG.

“It is of concern that the government has drafted amendments to the FEG that punish workers who have been made redundant, restricting their rights to their entitlements, without initiating amendments that work toward keeping businesses afloat,” they said.

In a second dissenting report, Australian Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon said cutting the FEG had the same “flawed logic” as making young jobseekers look for work without any income support.

Continued from page 1

to sick leave and annual leave, so making people permanent would simply give workers those entitlements at no extra cost.

Nor was the proposed change targeted at genuine casuals such as students who work irregular shifts in bars or restaurants, she said.

“This is about the teachers, receptionists, disability support and aged care workers who are already genuinely working permanent hours and deserve to have that recognised,” the ACTU President said.

“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck – it’s not a rooster. These workers are permanent in all but name and recognition of entitlements.”

Some Awards already have conversion clauses, usually after a set period of continual and regular employment, such as six or 12 months on the same roster, but employers have found ways around them over the years.

The inadequacies of current casual conversion clauses were identified by the Howe Inquiry in 2012, which found that their effectiveness was limited by several factors, including employers’ discretion to refuse conversion and the rise of labour hire.

It also found that for reasons often beyond their control, casuals sometimes preferred to receive the extra income from their loading.

Rather than more casual conversion clauses after a fixed period of employ-ment, the Howe Inquiry proposed a slightly different “gradual deeming” mechanism under which casual employees incrementally accrue access to rights and entitlements currently only available to permanent employees.

The Howe Inquiry report was released at the ACTU Congress in May 2012, which endorsed a national campaign on secure jobs.

But that campaign was later sidelined as the ACTU focussed on other priorities under then newly-elected Secretary Dave Oliver.

4 .org.au October 2014

At Work

The problem is the emergence of working poor - not rich versus poor

by GED KEARNEYACTU President

Read the full version of this article:workinglife.org.au

I QUICKLY learned that after retirement there is a whole new world for a committed trade unionist and there is much for us to do.

It is not hard to feel concern for our old work colleagues or for the next generation of workers confronted everyday by the outrageous excesses of the Abbott Government.

Retirement has also made me look at all the other hard earned rights and privileges that the union movement has won for our society.

I am thinking of superannuation, the aged pension, Medicare: all of which provide me and other retirees with a comfortable retirement.

The last thing that I want is for Australia to turn into a mirror image of the United States.

The thought sickens me that Australia might have no public education, no Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, no workers’ compensation, no maternity leave, and no social safety nets!

In retirement, many of us are sufficiently well enough to get out there and protest in the streets, to write letters to our local member (including members of this rancid government), to write submissions to inquiries and to let it be known that we too will be working to change any government who treats its citizens with such contempt!!

When I retired from the AMWU, there was nowhere for me to go to maintain my activism and I quickly found out that none of the unions in Canberra had a retired members group or branch.

From this, the Vintage Reds were formed.

They are not a Canberra house brick (local joke), nor are they a decent old bottle of red wine; they are the Retired Progressive Trade Union Activists of the Canberra Region

The group humorously call themselves the “Vintage Reds”, but they do have a number of very serious union-based activities that they wish to pursue.

These include:PUBLICLY promoting and supporting trade unionism with street rallies and attending specific union rallies. This is even more important under the recently elected Abbott Government.PROMOTING the interests of trade unionism and of retired unionists, particularly in regards to Government policies and practices.PROVIDING forums for political dis-cussion and camaraderie through social activities such as lunches, guest speaker discussions, cinema screenings, and attending labour history events.

The majority of our members are from the old ADSTE (Association of Draughting Supervisory & Technical Employees), who amalgamated with the AMWU. We also have a significant number of members from the CPSU/PSU because it is a public service town.

Other unions include the AEU, Nurses, MEAA, Plumbers, CFMEU, NTEU and APESMA (now Professionals Australia).

The MUA and the AMWU, among others, run active retired unionists groups, but to my knowledge, this is the only group of retired unionists in Australia who are organised on a regional rather than vocational basis.

On retirement, we have left our industry or calling behind so the region matters

more than occupation.If we are passionate unionists we are

usually passionate political activists in our communities – in our case, the Vintage Reds are focused on the Federal seats of Fraser, Canberra and Eden-Monaro.

We are affiliated with Unions ACT, and reluctantly collect a dollar off our members at each meeting for petty cash.

All of our resources have been donated by unions. The CFMEU pays our room hire and they provided us with shirts; the AEU has provided us with our website; the CPSU/PSU provided us with our large banner; the Nurses provided two pull-up banners; our brochure is being laid out and printed by the NTEU; petty cash pays for the cake.

Our group, which recently celebrated its first birthday and was officially launched by ACTU President Ged Kearney in February, meets on the third Tuesday of the month at the Dickson Tradies’ Club at 11am. For further information, phone us on (02) 6249 8657. Retired unionists can also get involved through recently established Australian Unions Retired Unionists Network.

5.org.auOctober 2014

TAKE ACTIONJoin the Retired Unionists Network:australianunions.org.au/retired_unionists_network

Maintaining the political rage well into the retirement years

At Work

Not the retiring types: Members of the Canberra Vintage Reds.

by JANE TIMBRELL

Inside the CFMEU

THEO Theodorou’s week has started off badly and is only going to get worse. The previous Friday,

Theodorou woke to find his name in print in Melbourne’s two daily newspapers as the latest CFMEU official to be charged by Fair Work Building and Construction.

The CFMEU organiser is alleged to have acted unlawfully by attempting to force a demolition sub-contractor to sign an enterprise agreement with the union.

The media stories put a dampener on Theodorou’s weekend, which should have been a celebration of his involvement in coaching a young team of footballers to a premiership flag, and the dark cloud still hasn’t lifted by Monday morning.

“In this job, when the phone rings, you know it’s not going to be someone calling to say ‘how are you going?’,” he explains during a visit to a large residential project in Richmond. “It’s going to be a worker injured, or a guy who has had a fall, or someone who hasn’t been paid, a builder who has gone broke and you have to go and chase the builder.”

Theodorou has no way of knowing that 24 hours later, his 71-year-old father will be seriously injured when he is struck on the head by an overloaded bin lifter on a Brookfield Multiplex building site just a few hundred metres from the CFMEU’s offices in Swanston Street.

Andrew Theodorou’s skull is cracked and an eye socket shattered by the accident. For several days, while he recuperates in hospital, it is touch and go whether he will lose sight in one eye.

Even in an industry with one of the highest death and serious injury rates in Australia, Theodorou senior’s accident is a reminder that the ever-present dangers of construction work are close to home.

“It shook everyone up,” says Gerry Ayers, the manager of the CFMEU’s environmental and occupational health

and safety unit. “It really brings it home to you. It’s like

the road toll – the statistics don’t mean anything until you are personally affected by knowing someone in a car accident.”

At the exact same moment as Theodorou senior’s accident, the CFMEU was preparing for another day in the Heydon royal commission into trade unions, to be grilled over – of all things – the revenue it makes from soft drink vending machines on building sites.

It has been noted elsewhere that the royal commission has been far more concerned about petty financial issues than the dangerous reality of everyday working life on CBD building sites. It says volumes about the misguided priorities of this most political of royal commissions.

His father’s injury is not the first time Theo Theodorou has had a brush with the serious injury – or even death – on building sites since he joined the industry as an apprentice carpenter 20 years ago.

It fell upon Theodorou to help identify the body of CFMEU member Bill

Ramsay and arrange for his body to be taken away when he fell 10 storeys to his death from a crane at a Grocon building site on 18 February last year.

“There’s nothing worse than seeing one of your colleagues being taken out in a body bag, and I’ve had to do that,” Theodorou says. “You never forget that.”

ACROSS the road from the CFMEU state office in Swanston Street is another constant reminder of the hazards of the construction industry.

6 .org.au October 2014

Heroes to their members, union dares to win

It is a side of arguably Australia’s most militant union that rarely makes the mainstream media. Mark Phillips goes behind the scenes to find out what makes the CFMEU tick.

A modest memorial has been erected in honour of young brother and sister Alexander and Bridget Jones and French engineer Marie Faith-Fiawoo – three innocent pedestrians who were killed when an old brick wall collapsed and fell on them the day before Good Friday on 28 March last year.

Anne Duggan was in the CFMEU building at the moment the wall gave way.

“I heard the noise – at first I thought it was a plane going down,” says the head of the CFMEU’s education and training

unit, looking down on the shrine from the union building’s second floor tea room. “It was awful. There was dust everywhere.”

Among the first on the scene was State Secretary John Setka, who was soon joined by others in a scramble to remove the bricks and revive the victims.

The fact that the builder was once again Grocon – with whom the CFMEU was in the midst of a bitter dispute over workplace safety – was not lost on anyone.

The dispute with Grocon has become symbolic of a wider struggle in the construction sector to preserve the independence of worker-elected health and safety representatives, rather than ones appointed by employers.

The CFMEU’s Victorian branch employs five full-time safety officers, but it is the 450 or so elected health and safety representatives who are the real frontline army in the fight for safer building sites

Deaths in the construction sector occur at a rate of almost one a week.

At 4.34 fatalities per 100,000 workers, construction has twice the death rate of the national average for all industries. The rate of serious injury is also much higher than other industries, with almost 14,000 serious injuries or illnesses reported in the most recent year on record alone, which was 2011-12.

Gerry Ayers says the intense scrutiny on the union, the hardline approach taken by Fair Work Building and Construction on prosecuting union members for the slightest hint of unlawful industrial action, and a hostile political environment, is impacting on safety.

“We are finding that people are more reluctant to put their hand up and to speak out about safety issues,” he says.

Ayers is personally motivated daily by the memory of 23-year-old Nathan Park, who sustained fatal head injuries when formwork collapsed on top of him at a St Kilda building site in 2004. Ayers had to help carry Park off the site in a body bag.

A decade later, Ayers still has a special file in his office for Nathan Park, including a copy of the coroner’s report which found the death had been preventable. But justice was never served on the builder.

“When you have a fatality on a site, that’s when it hits you, that this can still occur in this day and age, that a 23-year-old man with a 10-month-old baby can be killed in a concrete pour,” Ayers says.

“The builder went bankrupt and started up again under a different name, but that young boy will never have a father.”

IT’S shortly before midday on Wednesday and the Melbourne CBD is pulsing with workers and students grabbing a bite to eat or doing some lunch hour shopping.

The dozens of building sites scattered through the Hoddle Grid are momentarily quiet as workers take their meal break.

Peter Clark and Alex Tadic push through the teeming crowds on their way to a site visit in Latrobe Street. Both men are similar in build but different in personality: the talkative, chain-smoking Tadic, a gold ring in each ear, is a bundle of pent-up nervous energy, while the older, wizened Clark has a laconic, been there/done that manner.

They are already wearing their bright orange visibility vests with ‘CFMEU OFFICIAL’ in bold black capital letters on the back and over their front breast; in their hands are their shiny black helmets, plastered with colourful stickers bearing messages like “CFMEU – too tough to die” and “Well, f–k me, I’ve been banned by Baillieu”.

On the way to the site, they both discuss how they ended up doing what they do: Tadic came to the role from operating cranes and as a dogman, while Clark worked as a labourer.

“The way I’ve always looked at it is the Continued page 10

7.org.auOctober 2014

Inside the CFMEUIt is a side of arguably Australia’s most militant union that rarely makes the mainstream media. Mark Phillips goes behind the scenes to find out what makes the CFMEU tick.

Far left: CFMEU organiser Theo TheodorouLeft: Inside a building site in Melbourne’s CBDBottom: The monument to the victims of the Swanston Street wall collapse

Photos: Mark Phillips

“I JOINED the fire brigade in 1983. I was a baggy arsed firefighter for six years and then was promoted to a

station officer in 1989.The most rewarding aspect of the

job for me is the ability to help the community when there’s a crisis in someone’s life. It’s a special thing to have the public’s confidence in our skills when they’re in a crisis.

One of the biggest skills I think firefighters do possess is problem solving because each call is different and has its own set of problems attached to it. Even if it’s a false alarm or investigating alarms or it can range up to a life critical entanglement of someone, whether it be an industrial accident, road rescues, trench collapse. It could be a dog caught up a fence. You’ve got to problem solve to mitigate the emergency.

I was 25 when I became a firefighter. I left school at 15 and trained as a printer for four years. Did an apprenticeship. And unbeknownst to me, the type of printing I was doing at that time was becoming redundant.

When I became a firefighter, it was a closed shop. But I was a member of the TWU and the PKIU prior to that.

I’ve been a delegate for around about 10 years. The thing that motivated me to become active and a delegate in the union was bullying in the workplace that I encountered. I resolved then that I would stand up for others in the workplace and wouldn’t allow them to be bullied like the way they tried to bully me.

Management can be very bloody-minded at times. I really think that most of the OHS issues can be discussed and worked out without having to resort to disputes and elevated to dispute level. But every time we have a conservative government in the board tends to go on a crusade.

I don’t believe that the union does run the job but I do believe a vacuum has been created over the years because of poor management at the highest level of the fire service and through necessity the union has had to step in and be the persons that implement and activate

policies to the betterment of not just the firefighters but community safety.

The MFB have tried to terminate our current agreement. They maintain the union is obstructionist in the introduction of new work practices, new equipment, those sort of things.

Because of the type of work that we do, we believe we should have a say in the implementation of those types of things because they’re critical to our role and it’s our health and safety that’s on the line.

I LIVE in Bentleigh, [and] I helped clean out [ex-MP] Rob Hudson’s electorate office when he got defeated in 2010 and we were talking about it and the unfortunate thing was 260 votes won government for the Liberals at the last election. Had 131 voted the other way, we would’ve had a Labor government.

Around about two years ago, in conversation with [United Firefighters Union Secretary] Peter Marshall, we decided that with the advent of the new enterprise bargaining agreement we knew that we were going to have a fight on our

hands with the government so we started to develop a strategy for how we would go about our new EBA and pressurise the government and we decided our best course of action would probably be a political campaign.

I didn’t talk to Peter about it much at all after that, but I know how to organise so I got on the phone and started to develop list of people.

I made a lot of phone calls to the troops in the field, the firefighters. And I started to get this strong feeling that the troops in the field were in for a fight and were prepared to stand up and fight.

When I started doing these phone calls, I was hopeful of getting half a dozen [volunteers] out of 1400 to help, but everyone kept saying “yeah, okay that sounds like a good idea”. I spoke to Peter Marshall about it and said do you realise how much groundswell of support there is there, and he was blown away by it.

And really it’s become a juggernaut. And to be honest the employers and government have played their part

Continued page 10

Frank is all fired up for the Victorian state election

My Working Life

Firefighter Frank Howell is part of the army of volunteers who make up the Victorian Trades Hall Council’s We Are Union campaign for the state election, to be held on 29 November. Howell is active in his local electorate of Bentleigh in the south-eastern suburbs, which is the Napthine Government’s fourth most marginal seat requiring a swing of just 0.9% to return to Labor.

“8 .org.au October 2014

9.org.auOctober 2014

WHEN I started at the National Union of Workers 20 years ago, I was one of only five

other women working as an organiser.Indicative of workplace attitudes

during the early-nineties, the blue-collar, male-dominated NUW had few roles for women and there were certainly no women in our leadership team. We were the outsiders fighting to have our voices heard.

Today, big changes are evident. I was recently elected as the first woman National President of the NUW, while Susie Allison was elected as the first woman Assistant Secretary in Victoria.

We now work alongside female union leaders at every level including ACTU President Ged Kearney.

These changes matter. Like all democratic institutions, unions should always represent and reflect their membership. And with women comprising over 46% of the broader union movement it makes sense that this is reflected in the leadership.

It matters that everyone has their voice heard.

But as far as we have come, equality remains elusive. In our workplaces a new story of inequality is emerging, a story of insiders and outsiders, those with secure work and those without.

In Australia today, 40% of all workers are employed in insecure work with few or no rights. These workers have few bargaining rights, limited access to childcare and no access to sick leave, carers or annual leave.

This crisis in Australian workplaces means we now have people working side by side – performing the same job, working the same hours and shifts – yet receiving widely different pay and conditions.

All around us profitable corporations

are discarding loyal, long serving employees and replacing them with insecure workers. Profits are being made; jobs are being created but the days where corporations reward loyalty with secure employment have gone.

This growing inequality between the insiders and the outsiders provides both a challenge and an opportunity for unions. Our members are well-placed to counter this ruthlessness.

However, the ability of union members to campaign against inequality is dependent on their ability to understand the predicament of insecure workers.

Too often, those who enjoy the hard won benefits of secure work forget to listen to the voices of insecure workers, the growing outsider class. We need to understand that the fight against inequality begins by speaking to and organising all workers.

To close the equality gap all workers need to trust and support the struggle: women, men, young, old, permanent, casual, contractor, and labour hire.

We must go beyond the workplace gate, we need to campaign for equality where people live, in their communities.

It is for this reason that the NUW has launched the first community membership

program in Australia. This membership program opens the doors of our union to the broader community whether they are paid workers, unpaid workers, students, retirees or unemployed.

We want union members to speak to their families, friends and communities about the issues they care about, the issues they want to see changed.

We want to hear all the voices in our community.

At its core, this is what the union movement is all about: people standing together in pursuit of a common goal.

In an age where more and more people are disengaging from politics, this may appear overly optimistic. However I don’t believe that to be true.

I don’t believe people are disengaging from politics because they are uninterested or they have given up their desire for change. I believe people are disengaging because their voices are being ignored. I believe that politicians have disengaged from us.

And just like the five women working in my union 20 years ago, people just want to have their voices heard. And it is here that a union movement open to anyone who wants to create real change can make a real difference.

Opinion

‘People just want to have their voices heard’

by CATERINA CINANNIPresident of the NUW

Continued from page 7

the workers are entitled to have a safe workplace,” explains Tadic. “We will never be unemployed, put it that way. There’s so many risks out there.”

Their destination is an old Coptic Orthodox church building which is being converted into up-scale apartments and a multi-level car park.

Demolition has just begun. It is a delicate job, preserving the façade of the church while building a 43-storey tower behind it, and the small crew of workers have been removing brick walls and timber floors by hand.

Both the demolition company, Delta, and the builder, Probuild, are tier one operators who have a reasonably good relationship with the union – and this site is not one of the “dirty, grubby jobs” so loathed by the union – but Tadic and Clark still want to pop in to make sure everything is going well.

Health and safety rep Steve Balta and the two union officers each other well – Balta has been a shop steward/HSR for 13 years and runs a tight ship.

The main church hall is currently still intact, but other levels are in advanced states of demolition. An adjacent block is a pile of rubble.

Tadic and Clark make a few observations, but everything seems to be shipshape until Tadic points out a darkened stairwell that needs lighting or somebody could have a bad fall.

“Yep, onto it,” says Balta.Demolition is an especially hazardous

part of the construction industry because it is so dusty, the environment is constantly changing, and the ever-present risk that a building could contain asbestos that no-one was aware of.

Back in the lunch room down the laneway, the crew of six currently employed on the demolition are listening to a “toolbox” safety briefing from a Probuild representative before finishing their break and returning to work.

Today, the men are being told about a nasty incident where a worker in another part of the city had his faced badly scorched by acid.

“I have been doing this for so long, but every day you learn something new,

because every day on a building site, the job changes,” says Balta. “I’ve seen a lot of close calls, but luckily no deaths yet.”

Clark chips in: “We see it so many times when there’s been an incident and you wonder how come someone wasn’t killed.”

Balta says it is frustrating that the Australian construction industry is one of the safest and most productive in the world – thanks to the CFMEU – yet the union still gets attacked.

BY now it is early afternoon. Tadic and Clark stop off for a coffee – two long blacks, no sugar – at a café in Latrobe Street before heading back to their office.

They discuss the two sites they’ve visited – both builders are fairly reputable, and the sites are in good hands with seasoned shop stewards on the job.

One of the criticisms levelled at the CFMEU by employers and governments is that the union uses health and safety as a “Trojan horse” to get industrial leverage – an accusation that Tadic furiously rejects.

“I’m known to swear a bit,” he says, recalling evidence to the Heydon royal commission about the aggressive language used by CFMEU organisers.

“But you know what? You might have an immediate risk when something is unsafe and if someone is standing in my way, waving a piece of paper in my face, saying I need to fill out the paperwork or I can’t go on the site, there is no time to be nice.

“Why am I going to be nice to a boss who exposes workers to unsafe practices. I’m going to swear if I have to. I’m not going to be shy about it.”

Continued from previous page

“beautifully because they have antagonised the firefighters, they have been the sole creators of a

lot of activists. I think there was always the intention

of Trades Hall to get on board. We could see what was happening with the nurses dispute, the teachers, and the paramedics were in the thick of it at the time.

I’m now volunteering about two days a week, contacting people on this side of town. There’s a great

level of enthusiasm. When we go doorknocking, we have nurses, teachers, paramedics and firefighters and we try to pair up a firefighter or other public sector worker with person in an orange t-shirt.

When a firefighter or a nurse or an ambo turns up on a doorstep, it’s been invaluable to our campaign. They’re all such trusted professions.Having a firefighter roll up and have a conversation makes a real difference, because we’re a real person, we’re not a politician.

We’re in the last few weeks now and

I feel we’re making inroads but as I caution others, this is not a time to relax, we’ve got to push all the way to the line and hopefully on election night we will get a good outcome.

I’m hoping we can roll out a similar campaign in the future. Like the old Leonard Cohen song says, “first we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin”.

We want to get rid of the government in Canberra because if they get in again, make no mistake, WorkChoices will be back again.

Interview by Mark Phillips

.org.au October 201410

Why am I going to be nice to a boss who exposes workers to unsafe practices. I’m going to

swear if I have to. I’m not going to be shy about it.

““

Read the full version of this article:workinglife.org.au

“

Ask Us

11.org.auOctober 2014

JAMES asks: My boss has asked me to obtain an ABN. Since then I have done so, but I don’t understand why I need to have an ABN if I am working for his business. Is he just trying to cover his butt as I am not currently on the books but I really want to be. What should I do? I do not want to own my own business at this stage of my life.

The cynic in me says you’re absolutely right when you say your boss wants you to get an ABN number because he wants to avoid paying you superannuation, holiday pay, sick pay etc. if he puts you on the books. (He’s already done the wrong thing by paying you cash in hand.)

Sham contracting is the term used to describe what he’s trying to do – employ you as an independent contractor, complete with your ABN number, when really you’re an employee and as such should be paid the entitlements

owed to employees.A true independent contractor is usually hired

for a specific job or time period; has a high level of control over how the work is done and can also can hire other people to assist; and can pay their own tax, GST and superannuation.

The big test is really how much autonomy do you have? If you have to follow a roster, and work where, when and how you’re told then chances are you are actually an employee and the suggestion you get an ABN is an attempt on the part of your employer to save money by not paying you your entitlements – and that is unlawful.

I can’t recommend whether you leave your job or not – that is your decision. Why don’t you give the Australian Unions team a call on1300 486 466 so you can find out more about what your rights are as an employee versus a contractor so you can make your decision more easily.

GOT A PROBLEM AT WORK?

You’ve come to the right place. Share your workplace issues with our other readers and get free advice from the Australian Unions helpline if you have a problem with your pay, entitlements, health and safety or anything else at work.

Phone 1300 4 UNION (1300 486 466).

What are my rights when working in heat or under hot conditions?

Why does my boss want me to have an ABN for work?

CASEY asks: I’m working at a kitchen that is non-ventilated and is already reaching 33 degrees. I’m worried about how I will be in summer. I was throwing up at work dizzy and nearly fainted today. I have complained to my boss over 10 times and nothing has been done. What do I need to do in order for my work environment to be better?

Your question is a timely one especially with summer just around the corner.

Working in heat can cause very real health and safety problems and is something to be taken very seriously. It can cause:AN increased risk of injury through fatigue, reduced concentration (which is something you don’t want to be happening when using sharp knives, direct flame and coping in what is already a high pressure environment), fainting and slipperiness of sweaty palms.WORSENING of existing medical conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart conditions and asthma.HEAT illness such as heat rashes, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and at worst heat stroke which can result in collapse, loss of consciousness, convulsions and possibly death.

So your boss brushing you off is putting you

all at risk and is a clear indication that they aren’t taking their duty of care towards their staff seriously.

There are some steps you can take yourselves to get some changes happening.

Your workplace is required to have an incident log book. If any of you do become ill from the heat or injure yourself, make sure you put it in the incident book, with details of what exactly happened, any first aid that was provided etc.

Have you thought of calling the WorkSafe office in your state?You can speak to them about the hazards you’re all facing on a daily basis and ask for an inspector to be sent out.

It can be quite intimidating going to a boss and complaining about something individually but if you’re all speaking and acting together not only is there security in numbers but your voice is louder.

Remember although there are some things which go hand in hand with working in a kitchen – such as the noise, the pace and the pressure – your employer needs to do everything possible to make sure you are all kept as safe as possible.

In fact the ACTU has produced a set of guidelines for working in heat and offers some very practical solutions to how risks can be reduced and minimised.

by RIGHTS WATCH

Working in heat can cause health and safety problems and is something to be taken very seriously.