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Issue No. 176 | 02 May 2003 |
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Solidarity Forever
Interview: Staying Alive Bad Boss: The Ultimate Piss Off Industrial: Last Drinks National Focus: Around the States Politics: Radical Surgery Education: The Price of Missing Out Legal: If At First You Don't Succeed History: Massive Attack Culture: What's Right Review: If He Should Fall Poetry: If I Were a Rich Man Satire: IMF Ensures Iraq Institutes Market Based Looting
The Soapbox Solidarity The Locker Room Postcard Bosswatch
 Is Labor History?Bob Gould Sprays Gerard HendersonWar and PeaceA Strange LightA Little HistoryDoes It Have To Be?
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News Child Care for Oldies Too
The call came as more evidence emerged of employer inflexibility in the guise of Dick Smith Electronics, who have thrown two women out of work after refusing to take account of their family responsibilities.
NSW Nurses Association general secretary Brett Holmes says the lack of suitable aged care services for elderly relatives places a major strain on workers, particularly women, 87 per cent of whom rate family friendly provisions their number one priority. "While access to child care has rightly been recognised as an important strategic objective in the struggle to recruit and retain nurses, the constraints associated with aged care responsibilities have failed to attract similar attention," Holmes says. "In the context of the ageing population and 15 years of public policy designed to encourage older people to remain in their homes, the difficulties associated with caring for elderly relatives is an issue of concern for a growing number of working Australians." Holmes says in light of the intractability of the current nursing workforce shortage response, it is imperative that appropriate support services are available to those carers wishing to return to the profession. Working Mums Given The Dump Meanwhile, two working mums, with 27 years service between them, have been sacked after their employer refused to allow them to trial new positions that they feared would impact on their family life. The women, employed by Dick Smiths Electronics - a wholly owned subsidiary of Woolworths - were told to take the new oppositions or take the sack, after their previous positions were made redundant. One of the women, Amanda Ibbotson, is caring for a child with cerebral palsy and feared the alternate position would involve new responsibilities that would make it impossible for her to discharge this care. But when she asked to trial her new position for two to four weeks, along with colleague Diane Wilson, she was told to accept the position now "We just want an opportunity to have a fair go because we both have family responsibilities," Ibbottson told Labor Council delegates this week. The Australian Services Union has condemned Dick Smith management for their inflexibility and is taking their cases to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission. 'These two women have been treated in an appalling manner, camped by a contemptible offer," ASU state secretary Michael Want says. "They should have the right to trial the new positions given their family responsibilities or be offered decent redundancies."
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