If I may recount a current experience.

At my place of employment over the last 6 yrs, both I and them have agreed to part company The catalyst for this decision was me bringing my car in to have it's timing belt replaced. During this repair/service they left a bolt loose. This bolt sheared off destroying the engine in my car. No warranty on their workmanship was offered or conceded.

Subsequently a discussion was had involving my happiness as one of their employees after I remonstrated regarding the state of my car. During that discussion it was agreed that I find a new job and that I would be looked after on the cost of repairing my car.

To cut a long story short, the restoration of my car was nearly $3000 and they charged me towing from my breakdown, all the new parts + their margin, including the parts destroyed by their original incompetence ( new timing belt and pullys etc) labour at $60 dollars an hour, all the other components destroyed as a result of their original shoddy workmanship (bent valves etc), they did charge me for. They did not charge for 1 part that was replaced for no reason at all, and another they destroyed accidentally whilst restoring my car to its former condition.

Luckily I found another job. I also thanked my lucky stars that I wasn't one of their retail customers because they don't get looked after like I did.

If I were to seek compensation for my treatment as an employee or a consumer in this situation, what hope would I have of succeeding?. Truth is none at all, unless I was prepared to take expensive action upon myself at great personal risk.

Such is the state of the Trade Practices Act in this country. Such is the state of protection/job security for employee's as well. No one in Govt since the Howard Govt did this, has done a single thing to change it. There is magic bullet it is called regulation.

cont...

Dear Thinker 2

You are free to name and air your grievance at the following website:

http://www.notgoodenough.org/

It is Australian, legitimate and offers freedom of speech as well as alerting others to unfair and bullying practices.

As a person who was forced to resign from my job due to bullying I am in complete sympathy with your situation. I wish you all the best for the future.

I know the feeling.
My fathers estate solicitor recently sent a letter and sent me an email advising me so ($30 email + $45 letter).
I was concerned that the letter would be sent to the wrong address so I sent them a reply with the correct address ( $35 to read email ).
They sent sent it to the wrong address (another solicitor) any way.
Other solicitor calls to advise letter sent to wrong address ($35) our solicitor talks to them ($35). Solicitor sends letter to correct address ($45). You may like this one to, we asked for a cost assessment of there charges and they charged us $900 to argue with the assessor. You cant win

You should not give up on this thinker2
If you complain even to the motor traders , write to local and city press use things like the consumer advocate in Sydney Tele you will win.
Just did so with our once only phone carrier, near fraud on their part,
I took on a boss I would not feed rude controlling and just wrong.
But while it cost me 14 months pay I won.
He never got to control me or hurt my members ,and time will see him looking for a job, about three years.
PS workplaces are not all good, mate of mine told me about another mate, of his and me.
16 years in one job, best hard working bloke you could ask for ,not been paid holidays or sick leave all that time, permanent not casual, anti union, will not let me get help, sad.

To update the situation since then,they,(my ex employer) has found more costs associated with the same repair and instead of paying me my final pay have kept it to recover this additional bill. Their sending a bill for the other 160 odd dollars.

Ironically because I'm a quality person I allowed them to rectify the situation/car on trust removing all evidence of the original shoddy workmanship that caused the problem in the first place in return for a favourable billing outcome. Doh !.

The point of my post was not to single out one business, but to point out the inherent imbalance in the system these days. This is allowing for the lower type of person to successfully operate a business, often with flagrant disregard to any toothless regulations that exist, because no one has the backbone in Govt to provide adequate means and/or enforcement anyway. A legal minefield for the victim ensues that is often no win anyway.

The battered consumer can look forward to a continuance of business collusion and prices rising without rhyme or reason.
Most employee's can look forward to continuing deterioration in wages and conditions. Because the attitude of business operators has changed because of the environment created by deregulation and no one in Govt will have the bottle to do anything about it.

With exception of the sectors where their are shortages of skills and employees the rest of can look forward to reducing opportunity and living standards.

And J.Parker Belly and Troposa for your links and understanding. It still shocks me to think that the values my father so wilfully fought for,
no longer exist by Govt decree so to speak.

My wife thinks that individual fundamental human rights have never existed, it's just more obvious now. I'm starting to think she's right.

But just reading the posts of all of the fine people on OLO/Forum, whether or not I agree with someone is refreshing and somehow allows me to remember that I am indeed and still a child of the revolution at heart. (it's a generational thing) lol.