Secure Jobs – Worth Fighting For
Workers from a range of industries rallied in Cessnock on Saturday 19 February, having their say on the negative impacts of insecure work and casualisation. “All industries today are affected by insecure work in one form or another,” Hunter Workers secretary Leigh Shears said at the rally. “Crucially we are calling for same job same pay, a proper definition of casual employment, the real opportunity for workers to convert from casual employment to permanent employment and industrywide bargaining for workers that are in satellite workplaces. “We’ve seen over the last nine years that there’s no willingness from this government to make any meaningful change and they actually project things to get worse.” Representatives from the Mining and Energy Union (MEU), Health Services Union (HSU), National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) spoke at the rally, along with Labor Senator Tony Sheldon and Hunter candidate Daniel Repacholi. Speakers outlined how job insecurity is impacting workplace standards across a range of industries. Health workers spoke about a dire situation in aged care, citing the negative effect inadequate pay and job insecurity has on care quality and resident wellbeing. Mining and Energy Union acting president, Robin Williams, said a common scene in the Hunter is to have a labour-hire employee working alongside a permanent coal miner doing this same job but earning “30 to 40 per cent less” with no entitlements. “That can be a difference of $40 thousand to $50 thousands dollars a year. So we are not talking about small amounts of money,” Mr Williams said. The rally comes following a final report by the Senate Select Committee on Job Security released on 18 February, which found job insecurity in Australia had reached “a crisis point”. Labor Senator Tony Sheldon, who chaired the senate committee,
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addressed the rally on Saturday. “We are going to be the first generation to pass on to our kids worse conditions than what our parents passed on to us,” Mr Sheldon said. “The inquiry found more than 50 per cent of Australians working do not have permanent full time jobs for the first time in our history.” The report found that job insecurity is damaging the physical and mental health of Australian workers, and it is holding back Australian wages and the Australian economy. That is the inescapable conclusion of the Senate Select Committee on Job Security, after 230 submissions, 26 public hearings, six in-camera sessions, three interim reports, and responses to almost 1000 questions on notice. The foreward to the report cited that within a decade of launching in Australia, Uber has become the second largest employer in the country—although its workers are solely engaged as independent contractors, without access to basic rights including the national minimum wage, superannuation, or workers’ compensation. “The scope of the job insecurity crisis in Australia is breathtaking. It affects men and women, older and younger workers, migrants and nonmigrants, and white- and blue-collar workers alike. There is no segment of the Australian workforce insulated from insecure work.” the report found’ Other studies submitted to the inquiry found that casual workers are seven times more likely, and fixed-term
National Organiser Leanne Holmes and Newcastle Organiser, and newly elected Mayor of Cessnock, Jay Suvaal, at the Hunter Rally contract workers 11 times more likely, to report unwanted sexual advances at work. These findings echo the recent Respect@Work report, which similarly found that people in insecure or precarious work may be more likely to experience sexual harassment in the workplace. This evidence demonstrates job insecurity is not just an industrial or workplace issue, it is a public health issue. Job insecurity is also an economic issue. The committee does not believe it is a coincidence that the steep rise in job insecurity has occurred alongside eight years of record low wage growth. Australians in insecure work often do not have the bargaining power to obtain wage increases. Through the use of labour hire intermediaries, gig platforms and dependent contracting, many insecure workers do not even have access to bargaining with their true employer.
RAIL & ROAD March 2022
