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Issue No. 285 | 14 October 2005 |
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Howard�s Secret War
Interview: Under Fire Politics: And the Winners Are ... Industrial: Un-Australian Economics: The Common Wealth History: Walking for Justice International: Deja Vu Legal: The Rights Stuff Review: That Cinderella Fella Poetry: Is Howard Kidding?
The Soapbox Postcard The Locker Room Parliament
 JWH's InspirationHooray for RobotsGovernment's DreamCome CleanGood Guy Done Bad
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News Call Centre Dials Up Future
About 50 labour hire workers at the Artarmon call centre, employed on one-week contracts, received the news, last Friday, after getting only a 'handful of calls during the week.
The Sydney centre, established for overflow calls had not received the traffic anticipated, despite the wall of advertising promoting the number. It is unknown whether the other two centres in Canberra and Melbourne will continue to operate. The lay-offs follow a week of confusion where the majority of callers were told to wait until the legislation came out. Workers Online called with enquiries about unfair dismissal, penalty rates and unlawful dismissal under the new changes and in all instances was referred to the award inquiry service WageLine. WageLine could not answer questions about the proposed reforms. "We can only give advice on current federal awards," the hotline said. Operators at WorkChoices admitted they did not have enough detail to handle enquiries. "At this stage we don't have too much information; it's still going through Parliament," one WorkChoices operator said. The response from other operators was that the reforms were "just proposed" and wouldn't be coming through for six months. The government has set up three call centres to deal with questions as part of its $100 million tax-payer funded spend to sell its unpopular changes. Workers Online understands WorkChoice operators are given scripted answers to questions and cannot answer any further questions. Unions NSW secretary John Robertson said despite appearances, the Government continued to dodge people's genuine questions about the reforms. "What were seeing here is the government spending money that isn't theirs on call centres and ads that provide no real information on their changes," Robertson said. "It's about time they came clean and told working people that these laws are simply the agenda of big business."
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