In a way we all are victims just a few story's need airing.
Today Monday I spent part of my day in good company ,with the your rights at work bus.
A man I know and see every week came too, a trolley pusher, he is mid 60,s and works very hard for $7 an hour.
His boss is a very big firm contracting to both our large food retailers, in a great deal of towns.
They insure no one is game to take them on, using dole earners under false names or pensioners cash in hand.
Woolworth's and Cole's know the whole thing is wrong, some here know it is happening.
John Howard do you care?
Can it be ok to harvest money by using tax fraud?
By allowing dole fraud?
Is this not defrauding every one?
Complaints to prime contractor are answered with its none of your business, you have no members here.
John Howard your safety net is a lie, in this seat held by your Deputy Prime Minister, in a shop he often passes me in humans in need work for near half of the minimum wage, any one care?

Workchoices has reduced the power of unions while empowering some dreadful bosses.
Yes it is illegal to act like this, and far worse than the very worst actions of any union.
But it is also true that it is happening more each day, why?
Can it be in our mad rush to do the impossible, compete with low wages in Asia we are content to destroy our culture for some?
While I was part of that small crowd around that bus 4 such story's all different saw the light in a small country town, how bad is it in our city's?
Mark Vail Sir in our small country town you and I hear every thing know every one.
Are you prepared to tell me you do not know about this?
Do you care?
Or are you happy that some Australians are forever poor so we can prosper?

Belly the harsh reality is this;we either address tarrif reductions or work a lot cheaper to pay for these cheap imported products.This is the down side to Globalisation.Our trade deficit is now $600 billion or or approx $60,000.00 for every working person.

Kevin Rudd also ignores this inconvient truth.Some one must eventually pay.To be competitive we will have to live like them or start putting up tarrifs.

Perhaps there are just too many people and not enough energy and resources.Things will get lot tougher no matter which Govt is in power.

Thanks for posting this, Belly. I had been making much the same point on another thread "Is Terrorism So Bad?":

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=830#14576

"Notwithstanding the figures provided by hired-gun economists, needless poverty and economic insecurity are real and for at least a large minority of Australians today, and many of the rest who enjoy some illusion of material prosperity often overlook how hard and how long they are working for that prosperity and how expensive are many things which used to free."

Arjay, if protectionism is to be reduced, I think the costs we need to shared acroass all sectors of society. Those who shout most loudly in favour of Australian workers competing against sweat shop wages in the Third World don't have to face the prospect of such competition for themselves.

It's interesting that when the whole globalisation experiment began in this country over two decades ago, all the economists promoting it swore blue, against most people's common sense and intution, that this would make every one of us more wealthy. Now that the ugly reality which they denied would eventuate has eventuated they have quietly forgotten what they told us before.

Dear Belly
You are so right.
The new Government adverts do not see the real world out there.
Young people apply for a job. The foreman uses their discretion to sign up a youngster for the lowest rate they can hire them on so all employees are on different wage scales and different penalty reates. The foreman says sign here after you have read the contract if the youngster is not keen on the contract no job. When the employee finds along the way that there is unfairness and the employer is not paying Annual Leave Loading or Public Holidays the employee phones wage line to find out if the contract is correct. Wage Line ask did you sign a contract if that contact is not under the award then dong sorry you have sold your soul. Individual Workplace Agreements should not be touched with a barge pole if any employee signs them they want their brains tested. You would need the most expensive solicitor in the land to defend yourself from any ruthless employer. The concept is to place worker against worker so that the employer does not have to contend with any unity.

Has our deputy Prime Minister been shopping this week?
Would he care to meet me at 9.30 am this Saturday?
We can both talk to the 60 year old Aussie on $7 an hour.
We can both ask is this the Australia we want?
We can both wonder why such large food retailers do not employ shelf packers/trolley pushers on FAIR WAGES?
Yesterday on a civil construction site, siting on the sites septic tank! 7 new workers asked to speak to me, its illegal! not in a union ,not in a lunch room during a meal break ,it is not allowed under workchoices that we talk!
Did you know that?
A go between told me these pipe layers concrete hands are paid as landscape gardeners!
The lowest rates they can be paid
Over $5 an hour less than the right rates.
And that the bosses paper work may show insurance is paid for a far different job than civil construction.
If one dies on the job is the insurance going to pay?
Such is life under workchoices.
Did you know that Mr Vail?
See you on Saturday.

Further to the last post this day we rang that boss, he told us he was not anti union.
In fact claimed he was still a rank and file member of a very strong and militant union.
However on replying to a question we asked said his low paying award was THE 4 YEAR OLD VERSION!
Quick research and while on the phone we informed him he was under paying that insulting award by near 2 bucks an hour.
See it was very much out dated.
Even under workchoices the prime contractor has to be assured right rates are paid.
This assurance is a stat dec , nothing more, a lie on paper and it is cool no further action.
The pro union union member boss used the filthiest words I ever heard on a phone threatened to have me killed!
Wonder if the building industry task group cares?
No silly thought.
But these poorly paid non unionists will be paid the right rates and get back pay via a trade union that cares.
Safety net? over to you John Howard.

At a large national supermarket chain on the north coast of NSW the kids that work after school recently went onto contracts that cut their rate by $2 an hour.

Work Choice? Yes, sign or terminate. The choice is yours.

If anyone thinks they have a problem with the new work-place laws now - wait for another five or ten years. You haven't seen anything yet!

Team you are all aware but these expensive Government adverts are not in the real world. This is so frustrating as the Government have all the taxpayers money to fool the taxpayer. What can we all do to expose these misleading assurances ?
That Barbara Bennett on the TV advert is actually extremely heartless that is why she was appointed on to that job. If the employee has signed an individual contract whether coerced under duress or misguided in a court of law or an ombudsman that lonely little worker will not stand a ghost of a chance in a court of law.

Gday Mark, our country's second in charge! not in real life a bad bloke either but can we talk?
Yep I am a proud trade union official, maybe a bit brash? rash even?
No mate my birth was in the bush and education was drummed into me you must work hard and honestly.
But I will be in Taree tomorrow, my union shirt will have Belly on the pocket, and proud to be union forever under that.
We can watch the weekend trolley pushers together.
Those on the dole or pension who only work weekends hiding from social security people.
We can ask would you if those shares went belly up do that to eat? FOR 7 DOLLARS AN HOUR?
Or just maybe Sir we could ask why a true employment , true work for the dole structure can not be built.
Paying if you must the minimum wage so a trolley pusher can make a living in a true job.
Maybe next step is stacking shelves?
Is this the Australia you want mate?
Our nations biggest food retailers paying half the minimum wage to our worst off workers?
Defrauding the tax man?
The welfare system?
Some suffer so a firm based on low wages and theft is the biggest contractor in trolley pushing?
What next bloke? if you win? if workchoices changes that are programed to start in 2009 , already past Parliament come in?
Is our classless society only a lie?
Are some more equal than others?
Is the Aussie fair go dead?

As the thread lays here in the dust of our past thoughts and views I wish to leave it with some insights from my work life.
Most victims of workchoices are not unionists, most are not even in a union.
While the headlines of some dreadful acts by SOME unions can never be denied, I in my work as a union official have been a victim of those acts,we are clearly mostly not far from mainstream Australia.
This morning I WILL BE at the gates of our biggest food retailer, Mark will not be, he looks well groomed every inch the man he is our country's second in charge.
While the trolley pushers will be dressed as always shirts torn here and there nothing that was not new a few years ago.
Can it be one day the focus will be on the fraud they commit and not the blindness of a government intent on controlling IR but not dreadful grubby unAustralian criminal bosses?
Are those biggest of the big who use them not ever to feel shame for doing so?
Get your self to a union Australia.
Have your say
are we a nation willing to surrender the Aussie fair go?

Arjay with all respect it strikes us that you have not stuggled if you have then you truly have not suffered yet under this Heartless Howard Government. People have to suffer until they realise as they did under the years of that infamous Baroness M Thatcher the milk snatcher. People living under bridges in cardboard boxes. This is just what Howard is creating here dividing the nation between the I'm alright Jacks and the no-hopers. The West Australian Newspaper has the audacity to blame the States. Howard has been removing money from Government Education and Health towards private Education and Health by stealth. The victims are no longer hidden. As Howard has copied Thatcher with every policy, privatisation, war and scapegoats being Trade Unions and Immigrants.

Dear Belly
Keep up the good work you are precious.
To listen and read quotes from yourself and others like you, gives all Austalians heart that this world is not built upon greed selfishness and the unacceptable face of capitalism. The class struggle will always be with us it is up to the rank and file to agitate, educate and organise bearing in mind if you fudge you fail if you fight you win.

Thanks Bronco Lane, from little things big things grow.
I went on Saturday morning, just a bit concerned, not for me but my mate the trolley pusher.
I need not have been worried, no one came.
No one wanted to know about welfare fraud.
About half adult minimum wage being paid.
About false names to avoid tax.
About the tragic something is better than nothing reasons some work like this.
My work to end this has 12 months behind me and maybe that many years in front but this battle must be won.
Each day more battle worn true trade unionist die or just fade away from the movement.
And lies and a hand full of idiots who while part of the union movement can not stop by the actions they take defaming the union movement.
We, those who know and understand the history of our movement.
Those who value its past and future, must never stop fighting for fairness.
We must take on change that improves unions as a close friend.
And remember members are the only reason we exist.

You are right.
Trade Unions have become the victims of their own success.
1.Forming an alternative Political Party to those puppets that serve Big Business.
2. Legislation for better working conditions for all for example Occupational Health and Safety. Equal Pay for Women which the Conservative Parties fought against.
3. Affordable Education Health and Transport that is slowly being eroded by the Conservatives.
The list goes on and on the youth are not aware because social history is not taught at school. We now see the Howard syndrome within every walk of life with greed and selfishness. Hoon behaviour, Greedy Landlords, No give way on the roads dog eat dog no consideration or courtesy for neighbours or fellow road users this is the Howard Way. Whenever anybody told lies we would say they were telling us Porkies but now the slang is not Porkies they would be telling us Howards.

Spotlight have conceded that Individual Workplace Agreements are difficult for employers to dictate. Many Spotlight consumers and customers were boycotting Spotlight because of their treatment towards their work force. It is now alright for customers to return to Spotlight now that their staff are now returning to fair pay and conditions.