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Issue No. 319 | 11 August 2006 |
Good Versus Evil
Interview: A Life And Death Matter Unions: Fighting Back Industrial: What Cowra Means Environment: Scrambling for Energy Security Politics: Page Turner Economics: The State of Labour International: Workers Blood For Oil History: Liberty in Spain Review: Go Roys, Make A Noise
Qantas Holidays Delayed 150 Years We Have Ways of Cutting Your Pay Trujillo Slices Millions Off Bottom Line
The Locker Room Fiction Politics
The Cruellest Cut Poll On
Labor Council of NSW |
News We Have Ways of Cutting Your Pay
Andrews has gone into bat for call centre operators with 'independent' legal advice written by the company's own lawyers. Global Tele Sales (GTS), owned by the German giant, has introduced individual contracts that slash base pay rates by up to 10%, or nearly $50 per week.
The contracts feature performance based pay rises which disadvantage workers financially for use of sick or carer's leave, as previously reported by Workers Online (Issue 314 The Australian Services Union and the ACTU have been active in representing the call centre workers who fear for their jobs if the speak out, according to the union. With less than 100 employees, staff have no redress to unfair dismissals.
The campaign is drawing global support with union website LabourStart Workplace Relations Minister Andrews weighed into the debate at a press conference brandishing legal advice he claimed discredited the union campaign. The advice, later tabled in Parliament, turned out to be a letter written by GTS lawyers Blake Dawson Waldron. Andrews' intervention followed an investigation by Victorian Workplace Rights Advocate Tony Lawrence which exposed the cuts to pay and conditions of GTS staff who signed up to the individual contracts. The workplace watchdog voiced "serious concerns about the legality, fairness and appropriateness of parts of the AWA and the circumstances surrounding... the offering of the AWA by GTS." Lawrence listed a litany of cuts to penalty, shift and holiday rates as well as the reduction in the base pay rate.
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