Quote:
Originally Posted by AstralTraveller
If what they've done isn't illegal then it should be. If you have the energy then you should follow it up and see if you can get satisfaction. Of course with your internal plumbing in disarray you may not feel like you need more trouble but your ex-employer shouldn't get away with this either. Your call.
This is the trouble with the contractor system - it's the way companies externalise risk while internalising profits. If you were a waged employee you would have sick leave or annual leave or even leave without pay at your disposal and if they tried to get rid of you because of your illness they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. I do know one person who makes the contractor system work for them but for every person in that category there must be 100s or 1000s who are being exploited by being forced into the contractor system when in fact they are simply employees who are being denied the rights enjoyed by other workers.
There was a case in Wollongong a few years ago that really demonstrated the way contractors are exploited. A company had need of certain specifically modified truck for their operation. So they contracted the trucking to owner-drivers who went into $250,000 debt on the basis that they would have stable work for a few decades. About a year later the company decided to move their operations to South America and so picked up their money and left. The truckies were left with the debt and a truck they couldn't use. If the company had bought the trucks itself and hired drivers they would have had to factor the cost of the trucks into their decision to relocate (and perhaps decided they were better off staying  ). That is internalising profit while externalising risk. |
And they are getting very good at this. Especially since the LNP govt under Howard managed to pretty much destroy trade unions in Australia.
Mind you there are more than a few union leaders that have helped to trash the union movement with their greed and corruption.
In the hey day of the BLF under Munday this sort of crap would have been quickly and decisively dealt with by direct action. Now the dirt bag employers get away with anything.