working life november 2013

www.workinglife.org.auIssue 5, November 2013

Grocon under fire over ‘blacklist’ claims

ONE of Australia’s largest construction companies has been accused of unlawfully blocking union delegates from working on its building sites.

In a case underway in the Federal Court, the Electrical Trades Union alleges that Grocon has pressured sub-contractors on projects in Melbourne not to employ workers who had been nominated by the union as shop stewards or health and safety representatives.

The ETU alleges that three card-carrying electricians were each blocked from working on the project, following intervention by

Grocon senior management. The case has brought attention onto

the practice of blacklisting, which has long been suspected to be rife in the construction industry.

It follows revelations of blacklisting on a massive scale in the United Kingdom by some of the world’s largest construction companies.

The allegations also shed new light onto last year’s dispute between Grocon and unions over the Myer Emporium building site in central Melbourne.

Special report pages 5-7

SPECIAL REPORT: Blacklisting in Australia

• Building giant accused of blocking delegates from its sites• Sub-contractors pressured not to employ union activists• Suspicions about employee databases

Photo: Mark Phillips/ACTU

DELEGATES are not paid for standing up to the bosses on behalf of their workmates and making themselves a target.

They are the people their colleagues have chosen to represent them in the workplace, they need to be protected, and blacklisting needs to be stamped out.

If Tony Abbott is serious about reintroducing a “tough cop on the beat” in the construction industry, then he must be prepared to investigate all breaches of laws, not just the ones the bosses don’t like.

Editorial: page 6

Our say: Blacklisting has to stop

GET IN TOUCHWant to know more or get involved? Contact our newsdesk by email at [email protected] 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

Talking Point

WE’VE all seen those ads on the internet promising the secret to making big money working from

home. Well, the premise might not be quite so absurd as it seems.

Which is definitely not to say that you should click them. Don’t click them. They’re scams.

But there might be something to working from home, according to Pip Marlow, managing director of Microsoft Australia.

Everyone’s dreamed of working from home, if only on cold winter mornings where anything

would be better than getting out of bed, but Marlow believes that working from home wouldn’t just be good for you, it could be good for business, too. After all, a happy worker is a productive worker, and a productive worker is, well, a productive worker.

So why then does there tend to be so much resistance from management to staff working from home? Distrust. If staff are working remotely, how can a boss be sure they’re working at all?

The answer, says Marlow, is trust, and a little trust will go a long way. Mistrust your workers, and they’re liable to resent you for it. Not good

for productivity. But show them some trust, and they’ll reward you for it.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever had that one great teacher, or manager that inspired them to put in above and beyond the minimum required work.

According to Marlow, “work is something you do, not a place you go”.

Of course, if you work with heavy machinery, there’s probably not much you can do, but if a worker can work somewhere else, and importantly, be more productive, why

chain them to the office?Marlow is backed

up by a recent Stanford University study conducted in collaboration with Chinese travel agency Ctrip. As part of the study, Ctrip randomly allowed half its staff to work from home for nine months, and required the other half to report to the office.

Far from seeing a decline in productivity from the staff working from home, productivity improved 13%, alongside increases in work

satisfaction, and reduced employee turnover. In fact, letting employees work at home proved so successful that Ctrip have since offered the option to all their employees.

What it ultimately comes down to is the importance of happiness in the workplace. Whips and chains can be effective in the short term, but ultimately they will grind down employee morale, and with it, productivity. No two workers are alike.

So if there’s a change that could improve your happiness, why not suggest it?

Your satisfaction isn’t just good for you, it’s good for business.

Join in the discussion with the Today’

Talking Point column every weekday on

the website, and catch up with the

Week In Review on

Working at home or the office: which is the more efficient?

2 .org.au November 2013

by SAM RUGG

AFTER 14 years in the saddle, Casey Bruce’s mind is turning to starting a family. But if she did, the veteran jockey would not be able to access the paid parental leave scheme that currently gives new mums 18 weeks pay at the minimum wage.

The strict safety rules in place for jockeys prohibiting riding after the first trimester of pregnancy make it all but impossible for jockeys to access the government scheme.

The Australian Jockeys Association is calling on the Federal Government to exempt jockeys from eligibility rules requiring new mums to have worked for 10 of the 13 months before giving birth.

Despite a surge in numbers of female jockeys – a quarter of jockeys are now women – the AJA is aware of only one jockey successfully accessing the government paid parental leave scheme, introduced in 2011. For most, it’s impossible to find safe and appropriate work in their industry during pregnancy.

AJA CEO Paul Innes says jockeys are missing out on an important entitlement.

“Racing is an industry the whole nation enjoys and benefits from,” he says. “But jockeys are excluded from accessing the paid parental

leave scheme. Jockeys deserve the same rights and entitlements as other women workers.”

This Spring Carnival the AJA released a new report, Racing for Equality, highlighting the contribution of women jockeys and the challenges facing them.

The report notes a sharp rise in the numbers of women jockeys in the past five to 10 years, saving the industry from a steep decline in jockey numbers. The trend is set to continue with almost 50% of apprentice jockeys being women.

In addition to paid parental leave, Racing for Equality calls for minimum standards for women’s jockey facilities at race clubs and greater support for jockeys when they stop riding.

While racing is a multi-billion dollar industry, at some race tracks women jockeys are preparing in cramped conditions or even getting changed in their cars.

The AJA says government and industry should help clubs upgrade facilities to meet minimum national standards.

Jockeys also need better support when they finish riding, according to the report.

Continued page 4

3.org.au

Women jockeys race for equality on parental leave

At Work

Women now make up a quarter of all jockeys and have been winning major events for years. But they are still treated in many respects like second class workers

by JACKIE WOODS

FAST FACTS

• Current percentage of riders that are female: 25%

• Current percentage of apprenticesthat are female: 48%

• State/territory apprenticechampionships won by female riders in 2012-13: 4 out of 7

• Percentage of female riders 15 years ago: under 5%

• Total number of female jockeys: 194

November 2013

Riding high: Michelle Paine is one of many who would benefit from improved working conditions for female jockeys. Photo: Sharon Chapman/Whole Package Photographics

HELP THE WORK OF APHEDA

Set up a regular payroll deduction to support the projects of the ACTU’s overseas aid agency.

Take action at:apheda.org.au


Women jockeys race for equality on parental leaveContinued from page 3

The harsh physical demands of riding, including regular time out with injury and the battle to keep to riding weight, means many jockeys retire in their 30s or 40s.

For women, it’s often hard to return to riding after having children because of the early morning track work and lengthy travel to race tracks.

Group One champion Clare Lindop says jockeys’ single-minded dedication to their industry from a young age should be recognised when it’s time to move on.

“There’s not a lot of support for jockeys out of racing and there are a lot of very successful

jockeys who are now struggling in retirement,” she says.

“I think that is a responsibility of the industry for these riders after they’ve started their apprenticeships at such young ages.

When you start in racing at 14 or 15, when you finish you don’t know any other industry.”

The AJA is calling for the Australian Racing Board to establish a national taskforce to provide support for jockeys at the end of their career including employment support and training.

Casey Bruce said there have been a lot of improvements for female jockeys as numbers have risen during her 14 years of riding.

“There used to be only one other girl at a race meet, now there might be five or six.

A lot has improved in that time, but there’s still a long way to go.”

A quarter of all jockeys and almost half of apprentices are now women, but they lack career support. Photo: Sharon Chapman/Whole Package Photographics

UNION Aid Abroad-APHEDA, the ACTU’s overseas aid agency, is holding an appeal to assist its Philippines partner provide medical assistance to communities affected by Typhoon Haiyan.

The massive typhoon hit the Philippines in the early hours of 8 November, devastating communities on Samar and Leyte islands, killing at least 2500 people.

As with most catastrophes, it is the poorest who are hit the hardest.

In the Philippines, the shanties of the poor are built on the lowest lying land and are the most susceptible to flooding and storm surges.

Funds raised will be directed to Community

Medicine Development Foundation.COMMED is arranging volunteer doctors,

nurses and community health workers from the Philippines to conduct medical and relief missions to affected communities in Eastern Samar province.

If more funds are raised than are required for this appeal, the extra funds will be directed to the other work of COMMED throughout the Philippines.

All donations of $2 or more are tax deductible.

Donate by phone on freecall 1800 888 674, or online at apheda.org.au

Dig deep for typhoon victims

5.org.auNovember 2013

Building giant under fire over ‘blacklisting’ claims

SPECIAL REPORT: Blacklisting

ONE of Australia’s largest construction companies has been accused of unlawfully blocking union delegates from working on its building sites.

In a case underway in the Federal Court, the Electrical Trades Union alleges that Grocon has pressured sub-contractors on projects in Melbourne not to employ workers who had been nominated by the union as shop stewards or health and safety representatives.

The ETU alleges that three card-carrying electricians were each blocked from working on the project, following intervention by Grocon senior management.

In a defence filed this month, Grocon has denied the substance of the claims by the ETU.

In July, Grocon gave undertakings in court that it would not prevent the union members from being employed on its Myer Emporium project, pending a full hearing of the case, which is listed for further directions this month.

The case has brought attention onto the practice of blacklisting, which has long been suspected to be rife in the construction industry.

The Victorian State Secretary of the ETU, Troy Gray, said concerns about blacklisting were not isolated to Grocon.

“There hasn’t been genuine worker representation on Grocon projects going back six or seven years ago . . . There’s been blacklisting

going on in the construction industry for years but we’ve never seen it at this level of absolute control,” he said.

Mr Gray said the union would produce evidence that Grocon attempted to control who contracting companies could employ and of other tactics which appear to result in blacklisting.

At least one sub-contractor has been threatened with no more work from Grocon for going against the company’s wishes, according to evidence that will be presented in court.

The allegations shed new light onto last year’s dispute between Grocon and unions over the Myer Emporium building site in central Melbourne. At the heart of that dispute was an insistence by Grocon that it should be able to appoint health and safety representatives, rather than those nominated by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union.

The ETU has launched the legal action after each of the three electricians it nominated as shop stewards on the Myer Emporium site were approved by electrical sub-contractor KLM Group, but refused permission onto the site to work, allegedly following intervention by Grocon.

Documents seen by Working Life claim that Grocon’s interference in the employment of union members goes back to at least 2006,

Continued page 6

“To deny a worker the ability to put food on the table for their families, for standing up for their fellow workers’ rights, is disgusting.”- Troy Gray

by MARK PHILLIPS

On the outside, looking in: A worker at the Myer Emporium site in Melbourne, the major project at the centre of blacklist allegations. Photo: Mark Phillips/ACTU


Building giant under fire over ‘blacklist’ claimsContinued from page 5

when the construction company was contracted to build the new head office of the finance company AXA in Melbourne’s Docklands. Concerns have also been raised about projects in recent years at Latrobe University and the AAMI soccer stadium.

In the Myer Emporium case, the ETU will argue that each time, the workers nominated as shop stewards or health and safety representatives were known to be union members but had long and reliable work histories as qualified and experienced electricians and KLM agreed to employ them on the project.

It is alleged that KLM Group has subsequently

been blocked from any further work on Grocon projects because it continued to employ union members against the company’s wishes.

Mr Gray said the union had taken the action because of members’ concerns about safety on the Grocon sites, without any representation.

He said the intervention by Grocon had also jeopardised the employment of union members who have house mortgages and family living costs to maintain.

“Blacklisting is one of the most barbaric things a company can do to its workers,” he said. “To deny a worker the ability to put food on the table for their families, for standing up for their fellow workers’ rights, is disgusting.”

“We must, and will, use any legal means at our disposal to put a stop to any form of blacklisting of workers.”


It’s time to put an end to this abhorrent practiceTHERE are few more morally

reprehensible acts than to deny a person a livelihood on the basis of

their beliefs.Boil it down, and that’s what blacklisting

is. It is discriminatory action based on a person’s membership of a union.

And it has real consequences. Victims suffer a loss of self-worth, financial stress, their health declines and in some cases they suicide.

Our forefathers in the union movement were confronted with blacklisting and worse. It is because of actions like blacklisting that laws protecting freedom of association were introduced many decades ago.

For this to still be taking place in the 21st century should shame us all.

As we report, blacklisting is extremely difficult to prove and is more sophisticated today than ever. It was only through luck and the courageous whistleblowing of one man that the UK blacklisting scandal was uncovered. But not before hundreds of lives had been ruined.

Blacklisting is reprehensible not just because it denies a victim the right to earn a living. The threat of blacklisting can cause a victim to think twice before standing up for their union rights. It can mean that exploitation continues or a dangerous workplace is not made safer.

Anti-union vitriol and rhetoric is commonplace in Australia’s media. Union officials accept that and cop it on the chin. They can afford to do so, because that is their job.

But for a rigger or a sparkie, whose livelihood is on a building site, it is a different story. The union activism is an extension to their job.

Delegates are not paid for standing up to the bosses on behalf of their workmates and making themselves a target. They are the people chosen to represent their mates in the workplace, they need to be protected, and blacklisting needs to be stamped out.

There are people in construction companies and sub-contractors today who know that great injustice is being done.

The new Abbott Government has pledged to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission. This is an organisation that was responsible for political witch-hunts of workers and rightly has no respect from working people.

It should be the first priority of the revamped ABCC to investigate allegations of blacklisting, beginning with the Grocon case.

If Tony Abbott is serious about reintroducing a “tough cop on the beat” in the construction industry, then it must be prepared to investigate all breaches of laws, not just the ones the bosses don’t like.

BLOW THE WHISTLE ON BLACKLISTING

Do you have information about blacklisting? Do you suspect you have been a victim?

Contact us at:[email protected]

OUR SAY



‘Mentally, physically, emotionally, I’m a wreck’

SAM (whose name has been changed at his request) had been working on the construction of Woodside’s massive Pluto LNG project in the north-west when he went home to Perth for Christmas at the end of 2010. He says that while he was on leave, he was sacked by phone.

It was the start of an ordeal that has scarred the 50-year-old, who has no doubt his treatment has been because of his activism with the CFMEU.

Sam admits he’s no angel. He’s a committed activist, and was in the thick of action at the Pluto project. This is not the first time Sam has had problems linked to suspected blacklisting, but as he says: “this time someone has really gone out of their way to put the knife into me”.

Kevin Sneddon, a lawyer with the CFMEU in Western Australia, handles many cases like Sam’s and says that blacklisting is widely suspected throughout the construction and resources industries. The problem is that it is devilishly hard to prove.

“We have had dozens and dozens and dozens,

hundreds I would say over the years [of members who have been blacklisted],” he says. “For as long as I’ve been working, IR managers have talked to each other and said avoid A, B and C because they’re bloody troublemakers. That’s always happened for the last 150 years.”

What is new is that improvements in technology have made the record-keeping of blacklisted workers more sophisticated.

Unions in WA have for many years had concerns with the growing using of employee management databases which rate workers on employability. These databases, including one operated by a Perth company which has many clients in the resources sector, are used by construction contractors and sub-contractors

to check the qualifications of prospective employees and manage their mobilisation.

Mr Sneddon says that on the completion of a job, workers are given a rating of one (suitable for employment) to three (not suitable). While this is not unlawful, and the company in question is on the record denying it operates a blacklist for employers, the lack of transparency about how workers are rated and the criteria used has raised suspicions.

“If you have a three against your name, then your chances of being employed in resources are greatly diminished to the point where you’re not going to get a job,” Mr Sneddon says.

For Sam, the nightmare began at the end of 2010, during his Christmas break.

But he still thought he had a job when he went on leave. Since he was retrenched from the Pluto project, Sam has applied for dozens of jobs in construction and been knocked back every time. Sometimes, he has passed all the tests but been refused employment at the final stage.

The financial stress of not working has been overwhelming, and he is now considering moving east to escape the suspected blacklist.

“Mentally, physically, emotionally I’m a wreck because of this,” he says. “A man wants a sense of purpose when he gets up in the morning.”

Sam says blacklisting has always been in the background throughout his working life.

Mr Sneddon says the most insidious effect is that the fear of being blacklisted has prevented workers from speaking up about health and safety, or breaches of their rights.

“People are scared to be active for fear of ending up on a blacklist. . . If you speak up it’s a common threat on the job we will make sure you’re on the list, the threat is real,” he says.

‘Sam’ has spent the past 30 years working as a rigger on large construction sites all over Australia and parts of the rest of the world, but since 2010, he hasn’t been able to get a job

by MARK PHILLIPS

“If you have a three against your name, then your chances of being employed in resources are greatly diminished to the

point where you’re not going to get a job.But proving it is enormously difficult.”

- Kevin Sneddon, CFMEU lawyer

Photo: Mark Phillips/ACTU


After 25 years, ‘Madge’ is all at sea and still loving it

My Working Life

MY father was a seafarer and was in the industry his whole life, pretty much. He went away as a boy and

shipped out of a place in the north-east of England called Middlesborough. In those days he was on international rosters, so he shipped out all over the world, out of Singapore and Hong Kong. When we moved to Australia, he shipped out of Port Kembla as well, and that’s what exposed me to the industry and the union.

When he was on his ships when we were little, me and my three brothers used to go down there to see the ships. It sparked an interest in me, and I was always fascinated hearing stories about overseas places.

I went to sea as a 17-year-old under the new integrated rating [IR] system. Most of my career I worked for BHP on the iron boats as they were called . . . Then they got taken over by another shipping company in 2001, and I left the bluewater industry in 2005 to go and work in the oil and gas side of things, which is referred to as the offshore industry.

A lot of people lost their jobs, it was terrible. In the mid-90s, I think we had 17 iron boats, and then under the Howard years the fleet just got decimated and then with the downturn of BHP we just saw more and more ships leave the coast, so unfortunately, we lost the backbone of the industry.

Longest trip I did was five months, and since I’ve been married it was three months. I’ve got two teenagers, a son and a daughter, and my kids don’t know any different.

I joined the union in 1988 and in those

days it was the Seamen’s Union of Australia . . . From the early part, I’ve always taken a big interest in the union and obviously our safety campaigns have been paramount. Over the years, when you’ve seen people being killed it’s been bloody horrible. I want to get everyone who comes to work offshore or on ships to get back home in the same piece as they left. That’s really important to me.

When I got away to sea, it wasn’t the same environment as it is now. It was very, very hard in the late-80s. You’d be away at sea for months at a time. We were kids, but we were in a man’s world so you had to grow up very quickly and that wasn’t many support networks. And there were a lot of hard men there.

I always remember how I used to feel in those days, so I made a conscious effort, as I got a little older, to make sure I made the young blokes feel welcome and said my door’s always open if you want to talk.

My advice to anyone interested in seafaring as a career is I’d say it’s a great industry. It gives you the opportunity to have a great life, to see a bit of the world, give yourself a good education too.

It really teaches you to appreciate what being home means. And you really put a value on things that everyone else takes for granted. Just simple things like tucking your kids into bed at night.

Everyone I’ve worked with looks back on it with great memories and fondness because that’s where you learnt your trade.

John “Madge” McGartland began

his working life as a seafarer at the age of 17, and 25 years

later, he is still doing it. The Maritime

Union of Australia stalwart from

Wollongong was named Delegate of the Year at the

ACTU National Union Awards this year.

He spoke to MARK PHILLIPS

NOMINATE A WORKPLACE HERO

The opportunity to nominate your best and fairest of 2013 is coming soon. For further information about the annual award categories and nomination process contact Michelle Ryan on (03) 9664 7379 or email:[email protected]

Phot

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Phill

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AC

TU

IF you wanted to make our government work better and improve services for ordinary Australians, why would you give

more power to a group of business people with a stake in contracting out government services?

That’s the question I’m asking after the Abbott Government announced its Com-mission of Audit into government - effectively contracting out policymaking to big business.

It has placed one of the most important reviews of our public services in the hands of a committee that is sure to recommend outsourcing, budget cuts and privatisations.

You can only assume that it is this Government’s agenda to drastically reduce the size and scope of our public service and that this Commission will be the cover that allows them to do it.

The leader of the Commission of Audit will be Business Council of Australia head Tony Shepherd, assisted by the BCA’s chief economist. Other representatives include former Liberal Minister Amanda Vanstone and Peter Boxall, a chief-of-staff to Peter Costello.

The overall picture of this review is of a very small pool of people examining institutions

that touch the lives of all Australians. There is no representation from workers, not-for-profits or other groups outside a narrow range of business interests. The BCA does not even represent small or medium-sized businesses, it is made up banks and mining companies.

This is a conservative government attempting to put the fig leaf of legitimacy on its desire to shrink government and cut public services. This is the national version of what happened in Queensland under Campbell Newman.

Joe Hockey has repeatedly boasted that he wants to cut 20,000 jobs in the Australian Public Service. This is the ideological view that government is inefficient, that government is the problem and cutting it is the solution.

The mantra that “government should be run like a business” ignores the fact that government and business perform very different functions. Protecting children, or deciding on environmental approvals, are not activities that could or should be left to the free market.

Public services are things whose existence Continued page 10

The mantra that “government should be run like a business” ignores the fact that government and business perform very different functions

Is this really the way to run a government?

Opinion

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November 2013

Austerity anger: in the UK, protests against government cuts are common. Photo: Paul Box/reportdigital.co.uk/TUC

by GED KEARNEYACTU President

Is this really the way to run a government?Continued from page 9

benefits everyone in the community, or which need to go to people on the basis of need rather than ability to pay.

At a federal level organisations like the CSIRO, Customs and the Bureau of Meteorology all provide functions that can’t be done by the market. Centrelink and Medicare serve millions of people each year including the nation’s most vulnerable.

The Commission of Audit has been handed ridiculously broad terms of reference and a ridiculously tight timeline to report – with a preliminary report due in three months. This will not be a measured examination of the state of our public services. It will simply be a cover for a slash and burn agenda.

It is founded on the false premise that we have a public sector that is oversized and out-of-control.

AS a nation our governments – federal, state and local – spend a lower percentage of GDP than most other developed countries. The Australian Public Service has grown more slowly than the general population since 2007. It is also subject to an annual “efficiency dividend” (basically a compulsory budget cut) which has seen net job losses in recent years.

No doubt there are efficiencies that can be found, but the fact remains we have a world-class public service.

There is a view that governments are inherently inefficient and that contracting out

services to the private sector is a magic pudding that saves money and improves results.

But the results of contracting out services are mixed to say the least. There are many cases where contracted workers have failed to meet the required standards, and where governments have been forced to take provision of services back in-house.

Australians who value public services should be on the alert for any sugar-coated attempts to downsize, privatise or outsource what should be basic functions of government.

Polling shows that Australians value their public services, and don’t want them cut, which makes it harder for conservatives to implement these policies.

In the UK, the Conservative Government implemented a policy known as the ‘Big Society’ which was supposed to see community organisations empowered to take over the functions of government. Despite the rhetoric around empowering communities, opening up government and opening up opportunities for volunteers, it soon became clear that this was a cover for an austerity program that cut public services.

Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews has expressed his interest in the ‘Big Society’ and how it could be put into action in Australia.

Many Australians rely on public services, our government funded health and education systems and pensions. They are central to our egalitarian tradition.

The shift to a small government, based on privatised and contracted services, may save some money in the short-term but its long-term effects on Australia would be catastrophic.

Welcome to the Hall of Shame

.org.au November 2013

MAURICE Newman is hardly a household name, but make no mistake, he is one of the most influential people in Australia.

For many years, Newman (pictured) has been in the shadows on the edge of power as a key confidante of conservative politicians. He was one of John Howard’s closest advi-sors, and was rewarded with a number of plumb jobs, including chairman of the ABC.

With the election of Tony Abbott, Newman has again been given a key role of incredible influence: chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council. This council will be dictating the government’s approach to economic and workplace policy over the next three years.

So when Newman recently delivered a wide-ranging critique of the past Labor Gov-ernment, he was speaking on behalf of the Abbott government.

It was Newman’s surprisingly frank con-tempt for the structures that make up our system of workplace rights and protections that has earned him the title of the inaugural member of the Working Life Hall of Shame.

During his address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, Newman noted Australia’s minimum wage – which in July rose to $16.37 an hour or $622.20 a week – was far higher than that in the UK, US and Canada.

Newman’s comments can only be inter-preted as an early salvo in a full-scale assault on wages and conditions.

For these reasons and more, Maurice Newman enters the Hall of Shame, a place where we will shine the spotlight on those in business, politics and public policy who by words and by deeds pose the greatest threat to the lives of working people.

10

HALL OF SHAME

Read more about the new Hall of Shame on the Working Life website.

workinglife.org.au

Ask Us

CATHERINE asks: I’m casual worker. Can they keep making me work until midnight then ask me to start at 5am next morning?

That is a very short turnaround before you’re next in – especially when you consider you have to travel home at midnight, wind down from work so you can go to sleep, then get up early enough to get ready, travel to work and be ready to start at 5am. It’s ridiculous.

You don’t mention what industry you’re working in, but whatever your job the tiredness you must be experiencing is a serious occupational health and safety risk – and that’s without even factoring in you having to travel while exhausted.

Fatigue can have serious consequences including: cardiovascular problems, burnout, gastro-intestinal disorders, pregnancy disorders.

Workplace accidents are more likely to happen when you are tired and your concentration and strength wane.

Then there are the effects on your personal life through burnout, lack of quality time with family and friends, depression and relationship breakdown.

Many Awards and agreements will contain definite details of shift times and the minimum number of hours break you must have before recommencing the next day’s work.

Meanwhile, keep a diary of the times you’re expected to work and if you’re experiencing any health problems at all, please see your doctor.

Don’t treat this lightly; you wouldn’t be happy to work with dangerous chemicals without the right protective clothing; neither should you be prepared to put yourself at risk by working such unreasonable hours.

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).

With social media at work, it’s better to be safe than sorry

A five-hour break is not enough

JESS asks: My boss is trying to implement a new policy at work in which is the usual Facebook, Twitter, MySpace kind of policy about no bullying etc. and he is trying to force us to become his friend on Facebook, and he is trying to tell us we will be fired or sued etc. if we don’t agree to the policy. I was just wondering what are my rights as the employee and if I have to become his friend?

No Jess, you don’t have to become his friend. Social media presents an absolute minefield when it comes to mixing work with your private life, and should be approached with extreme caution.

On the plus side, it’s great your boss has made it absolutely clear that online bullying of workplace colleagues won’t be tolerated – and neither should it be.

However it’s up to you to decide with whom to become “friends”.

Why does he want to interact with you all online? I can only assume it’s to monitor what you post.

Do your colleagues feel as strongly about this as you do? If so then it would be worthwhile acting collectively to let him know you don’t agree with this new policy.

It’s important to remember a few things when mixing social media and the workplace.

It might be stating the obvious, but don’t allow colleagues to see anything which you have even the slightest doubt about – including comments you make about your job and employer.

Pictures of you partying might be great to share with your friends – but do you want your supervisor to see them?

This also goes for comments you might make about your job or employer.

Remember you don’t know who can see what your workmate responds to. Trust me, I’ve learnt this myself from personal experience

Similarly – and I’m not saying this is right or fair – bosses have been known to check out job applicants’ pages when considering whether or not to hire them.

Those posts that were so hilarious six months ago might work against you and the image you put so much effort into projecting at the job interview.

Use sound judgement – check your privacy settings, that’s what they’re there for!

Above all, be really careful of using social media at work unless it’s part of your job.

I know it’s tempting, but you don’t want to be caught out.

All this must be enough to make you really paranoid I know, but when it comes to online and social media activities it’s so much better to be safe than very, very sorry.

by RIGHTS WATCH


When it comes to social media at work, use sound judgement and remember nothing is ever really private on the web