Australian universities have been hit hard by decades of neoliberal austerity. Now, after countless job losses and rising workloads, university workers are taking the fight to managers and vice chancellors.
Source: In Australia, Precarious University Workers Are Stepping Up the Fight
Worker action exposed systematic wage theft within Australia’s largest university and forced management to pay staff the millions that had been stolen from them.
Source: Australia’s Largest University Stole $8.6 Million From Workers’ Wages
The rampant commercialisation of Australia’s public universities has been laid bare as they engage in behaviour more expected of multinationals than learned institutions. While huge numbers of teaching staff have been casualised, the sector is reporting bumper profits and eyewatering corporate salaries. Michael Sainsbury runs the numbers.
Australia’s universities: bosses reel in $1m-plus salaries, $1bn profit on back of staff underpayment – Michael West
Casualisation of the workforce disproportionally affects younger generations. From Amazon’s big MEL1 sweatshop to even the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), the gig economic proliferates. Millennial lawyer Geordie Wilson reports that even the Australian Government is casualising its workforce at an astounding rate. In this, the first of our series Millennials vs Boomers, Wilson says illegal workplace practices appear to be rife even in the public service. It is something the Baby Boomers generation would hardly have even contemplated as, back in the day, they sought secure government jobs and the protection of the law.
via Boomers vs Millennials: the gig economy breaks & enters the Australian Public Service – Michael West
Bye Bye Full Time work Benefits Holidays, Sick leave and Security. Bye Bye Bank loans and long term planning.
Many casual workers were permanent in all but name, the union argued, and were afforded significantly inferior rights and conditions, despite working regularly for the same employer.
That accords with the findings of the most recent Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (Hilda) study, which found 60% of workers who self-identified as casuals were doing regular shifts for an employer they had been with for at least six months.
But the commission rejected the union’s conversion proposal, and instead gave workers the right to request a conversion to permanent employment after 12 months of regular work.
Employers retained the right to reasonably refuse a casual worker’s request to become permanent.
via Unions to fight casualisation of Australia’s workforce | Australia news | The Guardian
Economists have begun to view underemployment with alarm, with good reason.
Forget the Turnbull Government’s ‘budget repair’ dogma. The real reason the Coalition is trying to cut the dole is to further undermine job security and the power of workers, writes Owen Bennett. The nature of the Australian labour force has changed drastically in a very short time. In the late 1970s, eight in 10 workersMore
Source: A Casual Killing: How Government And Business Make More Money By Ripping Off Yours – New Matilda
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