Peter Boyle
Jake, a high school student, has been working a couple of night shifts a week for a well-known fast-food chain since last year. His normal hourly pay rate is $6.85, but he's paid a 10% loading for working after 6pm. But young workers taken on since the new IR laws have come in are not getting the loading for night work.
That's only part of the story: young people, who make up one-fifth of the Australian work force, have some of the poorest working conditions and health and safety standards, suffer severe workplace bullying and harassment and are paid poorly.
In April, Walkley Award-winning investigative journalist Debra Jopson revealed the terrible human toll of the super-exploitation of young workers in Australia in a series of shocking articles in the Sydney Morning Herald. Her investigation revealed the "vulnerability of young Australians in the job jungle — often working for no pay, signing contracts with outrageous conditions, or being used as cheap labour under the guise of traineeships". She found that one in six of the 45,689 workers aged 15 to 24 who were injured in NSW over the six years to 2004 were left permanently disabled, according to WorkCover figures that were conceded by the authority to have significantly underestimated the real problem. She also revealed 500 young workers had been killed in the last decade.
For some chilling examples of the young workers killed in the workplace read Jopson's April 24 piece, "Tragedy and heartbreak — the stories behind the grim statistics of lost employees" at < http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/tragedy-and-heartbreak—the-stories-behind-the-grim-statistics-oflost-A HREF="mailto:employees/2006/04/23/1145730809413.html"><employees/2006/04/23/1145730809413.html>.
"It is one of the great untold stories in our country", Australian Council of Trade Unions assistant secretary Richard Marles told Jopson. "It is not Australia's dirty little secret. It's Australia's dirty giant secret."
The Howard Liberal-National government's Work Choices legislation has given bosses five major ways to intensify this super-exploitation. First, by pushing individual contracts (Australian Workplace Agreements, AWAs) onto workers. Secondly, by reducing the protection of already inadequate awards (especially for young workers) to just five minimum conditions. Thirdly by making it easier to sack workers. Fourthly by opening the way to lowering the minimum wage, and finally by restricting union rights.
In Victoria, Job Watch surveyed 670 fast-food industry workers aged under 25. Its key findings were:
- 60% of those workers who were under 15 years of age when they started their job at the fast-food outlet did not have a child employment permit;
- 10% were not being paid the legal minimum wage, and more than 43% did not know whether they were receiving the legal minimum rate of pay;
- 46% said they suffered an injury or illness at the workplace; of those, 24% did not report the incident;
- more than 35% experienced some form of workplace violence or bullying — verbal harassment (29.7%); psychological harassment (17.5%); sexual harassment and assault (12.7%);
- 68% did not report workplace violence or bullying;
- 23% were not paid for attending staff meetings and/or training outside work hours despite being legally entitled to be paid;
- 28% did not know whether their employer was paying superannuation on their behalf;
- 17% did not receive a payslip or received a payslip only sometimes;
- more than a quarter of respondents were not paid, or only sometimes paid for overtime;
- 53% stated they had worked longer than eight hours in a shift with 32% of those respondents having worked shifts of 11 hours or more;
- just under a quarter of respondents did not receive a 30-minute meal break after working for five hours continuously;
- 26% experienced a large cut in their regular hours of work and of those respondents 30% were not provided with any reason for the reduction and 13.2% said it was age related;
- 14.5% were removed from their roster by the boss: 8.1% as a form of disciplinary action; 8.1% were "forgotten" to be added to roster; 8.1% were not given a reason and 7% were dismissed from the job;
- 19% experienced some form of discrimination at the workplace. The main forms of discrimination experienced were based on: age (7.8%); physical features (7.5%); sex (6.7%); and personal association (4.6%);
- a significant proportion of young fast-food industry workers had not received occupational health and safety training or instruction;
- nearly one-third of respondents were not supervised or checked regularly to make sure health and safety instructions were being followed and that they were not exposed to any risks; and
- only 13.1% were members of a union.
The union movement has a responsibility to try to organise and the defend the rights of this vulnerable sector. New Zealand offers an example that this is possible. The Unite union has successfully organised many young workers in previously unorganised areas. It has held the first ever strike against Starbucks, scored a significant victory over McDonald's and has spearheaded a campaign against youth wages that won a commitment to phase out youth wages from Restaurant Brands, which owns Pizza Hut, KFC and Starbucks.
While in New Zealand particular right of entry laws have made it easier to organise this layer of workers, the experience shows that young workers are both willing and able to take action. The starting point in Australia is the campaign against the Work Choices legislation. In New Zealand, 1000 students joined a strike and march against youth wages in Auckland, and students are threatening to strike again against a new proposed anti-worker law. Inspired by this example, students in Australia are organising for a national student strike on June 1 (see advertisement on page 5). This bold action deserves the support of the whole trade union movement and the broader community.
Young workers worse off
Last year, the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training surveyed 5262 people in NSW aged 12 to 25, of whom 72% were in paid work.
It found that:
- 78% were casuals;
- 60% were in retail or restaurants/hospitality;
- one in seven working as casuals were asked to work unpaid overtime;
- 12% had worked an unpaid work trial; and
- 23% had been bullied at work.
The NSW Commission for Children and Young People (see <http://www.kids.nsw.gov.au/files/ATCChildrenatwork.pdf>) also surveyed 11,000 children aged 12-16 years, 56% of whom had worked in previous 12 months.
It found that:
- 50% were casuals;
- only 38% had regular work;
- 29% earned $4 or less per hour;
- 22% earned $6-$8 per hour;
- 48% had been verbally harassed; and
- 23% experienced physical harassment.
From Green Left Weekly, May 24, 2006.
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