Fred Fuentes
Anna Elliston, a high-school activist from Hobart, believes that John Howard's IR laws should never have been allowed to pass. Given that they have, she reckons the politicians shouldn't underestimate students' and young workers' determination to fight back. "Howard should be sacked, not young workers", she said.
As the many stories about our workplaces and conditions attest, young people are being hit hard by Howard's "No Choices" laws. We have the lowest paid jobs, we're predominantly in non-unionised industries and we work shitty casual jobs in unsafe conditions to get ourselves through university or high school. Since the new laws came in, young people are being sacked for no reason other than that bosses can now legally sack and rehire them on lower wages.
We are too often ignored by unions, and always treated as factory fodder by bosses. But we are fighting back, and on June 1 we will hit the streets to demand the repeal of Work Choices.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, compared to 10 years ago, some 250,000 more employees aged 15 to 24 now work part-time. Over that same period, more than 500 young people have been killed on work sites, according to figures from the national workers' compensation database (the Australian Council of Trade Unions believes the real figure is two or three times higher).
According to Debra Jopson in the April 24 Sydney Morning Herald, "More than 310,000 Australians aged under 25 have suffered work-related injuries or diseases over the past 10 years, almost equal to the number of Australians killed and wounded during the first and second world wars".
It's about to get a whole lot worse if we don't defeat the new onslaught of anti-worker laws.
In the same Herald article, Professor Michael Quinlan from the University of NSW's School of Organisation and Management quoted his research showing a correlation between casual work (in which young people predominate) and higher injury rates. "These people could have held a dozen or so different jobs by the time they have hit their 30s", he said. "Every time you are new to a job you are at risk because you don't understand the informal working rules of the workplace."
Young people often find it hard to speak up about health and safety concerns, and the new federal industrial laws would make that worse, Quinlan said. "It is a joke to talk about an 18-year-old negotiating with an employer. The power relationship is lopsided."
Amelia Taylor from the United Casual Workers Alliance, which she helped set up to campaign for the rights of casual and lower-paid workers in the Gold Coast, agrees. She told Green Left Weekly that young workers have lost any safety net they once had with the government taking away job security. "The young workers we talk to are worried about getting fired for standing up to the boss, or even asking questions. They are worried that if they refuse overtime, or call in sick, they will lose their jobs. So they stay behind at work, or come in when they are sick and should be resting.
"It's also getting hard for us to go into workplaces to talk to workers about their rights, or give out information. Many fear they will lose their jobs if they are caught", Taylor said.
Sophie Piscitelli, a Resistance member at Rosny College in Hobart, told GLW that most young people don't know much about the new work laws. "People are not yet aware of how the laws will have a day-to-day impact on their lives."
That is why Piscitelli, along with other students and the Australian Education Union, are organising a meeting on her school. "We are trying to raise awareness about the new IR laws as they are going to negatively affect us all, but especially young people. We're the next generation of workers, who will be hit hard if these laws aren't repealed."
Around the country, high-school students are organising similar meetings and distributing zines about "No Choices". Buoyed by the victory of students in France last month, students in Australia are organising to strike on June 1.
Taylor is very enthusiastic about the June 1 strike. "Lots of people ignore the contribution students and other casual workers, such as single mothers, make to society. They are the ones most affected by Work Choices because they have the least secure jobs. We have to change that."
[Fred Fuentes is the Resistance national coordinator.]
From Green Left Weekly, May 10, 2006.
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