24 November, 2011 | Media Release
The workers who install home services for pay TV operator Foxtel should have secure jobs and fair pay and conditions in line with Australian workplace standards.
The ACTU is backing a new campaign for secure jobs for pay TV installers, which is launched by the Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union today.
ACTU President Ged Kearney said Foxtel was exploiting its pay TV installers, employing them as individual contractors through a labour hire company, which had recently begun cutting their pay and enforcing fines for taking sick days.
“These workers are victims of the epidemic of insecure employment practices across Australia, which is now affecting 40% of the workforce” Ms Kearney said.
“They are employed as individual sub-contractors, which should allow them the benefits of operating their own small business. But Foxtel does not allow them to work for anyone else and the workers have to be available seven days a week, whether it is busy or not.
“Even worse, the installers invest tens of thousands in equipment to be able to work for Foxtel, but they receive no job security. Many tell us they have not taken a holiday in years, as they can’t afford the time off or fear they won’t be given more work.
“They don’t know if they’ll be working the next day until late afternoon, or how many jobs they will get. This approach is an unfair shift of risk from business to workers and leads to enormous financial insecurity for families.
“Insecure work suits employers because it allows them to shift costs onto workers, and it is spreading into sectors that were once seen as havens for permanent and secure jobs.
“Ten per cent of the Australian workforce – more than a million people – are now contractors, and many of them are vulnerable to exactly the same exploitation. They are treated like employees, but have none of the protections or entitlements that genuine employees receive.
“Foxtel is a respected Australian brand, which should take responsibility for installers’ work conditions rather than hiding behind the cover of downstream contractors, hired through contracting firms Downer and BSA.”
Monday, November 28, 2011
Britain: Unions prepare to protect community
Len McCluskey General Secretary Unite
Unite meets in Brighton this week in most troubling times for our country.
Faith in the institutions forming the pillars of national life - from the political class to the press - has collapsed.
Fear stalks the global markets, and yet our political leaders seem incapable of steering a course out of the despair.
At home, our government offers no hope to the millions on the dole. Calls from the sensible majority to rein in economic sadism and instead grow the economy go unheeded, while inhuman ideas like slashing benefits and access to employment tribunals take hold.
Our members understandably look to their union to provide a harbour in this storm.
Growing this union is at the core of how we will provide the vibrant opposition to this government working people need. Organising and the 100 per cent drive - priorities for each and every officer - will build Unite into the most formidable force for working people.
Extending the reach of this union informs another Unite initiative - the launch of our community membership.
By getting back into our communities we can remind them our values are theirs too. And if we don't reach out, then who will?
Unite will remain first and above all an organisation representing people at work. But if working people know what Unite is and what we can offer even before they enter or re-enter the workplace, then we become a natural and integral part of the fabric of their lives, from cradle to grave.
We are in the midst of an economic crisis of epic proportions. In the 1970s such crises were blamed wrongly on over-powerful trade unions. Today no-one can deny that it is unregulated, untamed capitalism to blame.
Giving free rein to the greed and drive for profit has brought us to the brink of a second recession.
Unemployment is at its highest for a generation - one million young people out of work and facing a future of despair while child poverty soars once again.
Unite meets in Brighton this week in most troubling times for our country.
Faith in the institutions forming the pillars of national life - from the political class to the press - has collapsed.
Fear stalks the global markets, and yet our political leaders seem incapable of steering a course out of the despair.
At home, our government offers no hope to the millions on the dole. Calls from the sensible majority to rein in economic sadism and instead grow the economy go unheeded, while inhuman ideas like slashing benefits and access to employment tribunals take hold.
Our members understandably look to their union to provide a harbour in this storm.
Growing this union is at the core of how we will provide the vibrant opposition to this government working people need. Organising and the 100 per cent drive - priorities for each and every officer - will build Unite into the most formidable force for working people.
Extending the reach of this union informs another Unite initiative - the launch of our community membership.
By getting back into our communities we can remind them our values are theirs too. And if we don't reach out, then who will?
Unite will remain first and above all an organisation representing people at work. But if working people know what Unite is and what we can offer even before they enter or re-enter the workplace, then we become a natural and integral part of the fabric of their lives, from cradle to grave.
We are in the midst of an economic crisis of epic proportions. In the 1970s such crises were blamed wrongly on over-powerful trade unions. Today no-one can deny that it is unregulated, untamed capitalism to blame.
Giving free rein to the greed and drive for profit has brought us to the brink of a second recession.
Unemployment is at its highest for a generation - one million young people out of work and facing a future of despair while child poverty soars once again.
MUA: Aussie Resources, Local Jobs
Say no to Chevron using foreign labour instead of Australians!
Rally with the MUA:
Tues 29th November, 12noon, The Esplanade - Perth Foreshore
Vic: Unions on the march
As the Victorian Government celebrates a year in office, the state's 23,000-plus public sector workers have issued a bitter birthday demand - cough up with big pay rises or face industrial strife.
Buoyed by the site of thousands of Victorian nurses last week clogging city streets to rally for better pay, a string of other unions today accused the Government of broken promises and massive cuts across the sector.
Unions represented included teachers, ambulance paramedics, child protection workers, disability workers, tertiary education workers and psychiatric workers.
And the state's nurses, seeking an 18.5 per cent pay rise over three years and eight months, were busy preparing for court action in their dispute, according to Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Brian Boyd.
The Government's public sector wages policy is for 2.5 per cent a year plus productivity improvements.
Australian Education Union Victorian president Mary Bluett said the state police and nurses had led the way in the battle for more pay, and the police win of a 19 per cent overall increase had set the "benchmark" for other unions.
"Right across the public sector and teachers in particular have looked at the outcome for police and certainly we see that as the new benchmark and the very tough stance the nurses have taken and their support they've attracted from the Victorian community, we hope and expect that support will be forthcoming in the event teachers are forced to take industrial action," she said.
Before he was elected to office, now Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu promised the state's teachers would be the highest paid in Australia.
But his first 12 months in government have been marked by big cuts to education and pay rise offers well below the eight per cent Ms Bluett said was being offered to West Australian teachers.
Mr Boyd said the Baillieu government had cut deep right across the public sector, not just teachers.
"In one year, he has already made $2.2 billion worth of cuts to education, health care, emergency services and employment assistance for young people..." he said.
"Victorian unions will not stand by and allow the Baillieu government to tear apart our state services."
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