Call centres getting organised
Young people have come to expect the worst from working life. For many of us, our first experience of work is in the hospitality industry, where we are lucky if we are paid legal, award wages. Workers aged 20 to 24 are the worst unionised of any age group in Australia: only 7 percent belon...CONTINUE READING
South Australian teachers escalate their campaign
South Australian teachers and school support officers have entered a new phase of combat against the Liberal state government in response to the government’s refusal to continue negotiations for a new enterprise agreement. A rally of more than 500 teachers and support staff outside the Dep...CONTINUE READING
United strike action in Wollongong
“Management across the Illawarra have made a huge mistake because Wollongong is a union town!” These words from Mark Rogers, a casual academic at the University of Wollongong, summed up the sentiment of 23 October in Wollongong. For the first time in 14 years, professional and academic sta...CONTINUE READING
Sacked fundraisers raise hell
The email came through at 3:40pm on Friday, 5 October: all 53 of us employed at the University of Sydney’s fundraising call centre had just lost our jobs. The “regrettable” closure of the centre, the message told us, was to occur the following day, meaning we had less than 18 hours until o...CONTINUE READING
Nurses rally against overcrowding
More than 100 nurses rallied on 15 October in protest at dangerous overcrowding at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. The new $2.3 billion hospital was opened in September 2017, and with 800 beds is South Australia’s largest. Yet already there is severe overcrowding. Staff report being forced to...CONTINUE READING
Strike planned at Monash University
After over 12 months of campaigning for a new workplace agreement, Monash University staff will strike on 23 October. Management wants to strip penalty rates from staff who work late into the night. Workers in the university sports facilities, residential services and other departments wil...CONTINUE READING
Will Labor change the rules?
Workers’ wages in Australia have stagnated or gone backwards for half a decade, while the super rich have been helping themselves – with both hands. According to the Australian Financial Review’s annual survey, the richest 200 people in the country increased their total wealth from $176.8...CONTINUE READING
Amazon warehouse: working in a modern day sweatshop
It has been 10 months since the portentous opening of Amazon’s first Australian “fulfilment centre” in Dandenong, south-east of Melbourne. A second warehouse, twice the size, opened in August in the suburbs of Sydney. Wide selections of goods and fast delivery times, however, are not the o...CONTINUE READING
Workers strike on billion dollar resort development
Around 800 construction workers on a $1.4 billion high rise resort development in Surfers Paradise voted to down tools on 3 October. The strike is about job security on the Jewel Resort project after 150 workers were told that they were no longer needed. A dispute between the developer, Yu...CONTINUE READING