Workers’ Rights In Retail And Fiji

Aug. 22 EST

This post was originally published at R@W News Blog on August 18.

In the past week and a half the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has launched a couple of new campaigns. These are both big campaigns and have a direct impact on working peoples’ lives. It made me think about what these workers are facing.

One of those campaigns is about the attacks on pay and conditions that retail workers are facing; the other is about the attacks on human and workers’ rights in Fiji.

Retail Workers

For retail workers, they face a co-ordinated campaign by employers, supported by the Liberal Party, to cut wages and slash conditions. Employers have asked the Productivity Commission to reduce important workers’ rights. The demands include:

To reduce minimum wages;
To get rid of unfair dismissal protections;
To remove penalty rates for workers who work late at night or on the weekends;
To cut back the minimum shift length, so that a worker could be called to work for as little as 1 hour;
To get rid of the rule that ensures workers have to be “better off overall”; and
To reduce pay to retail workers, ‘replacing’ it with incentive or performance-based pay.

To combat this co-ordinated employer campaign we need your help!

Whether you work in retail or not, make sure the Productivity Commission knows what a cut to wages and important conditions like unfair dismissal protection, penalty rates and minimum shift lengths would mean to you and your family.

Visit the Protect Retail Workers’ Rights page for details on how to make a submission.

Fiji

While Fiji may appeal to us as an island paradise, the reality for Fiji’s workers is very different.

Fiji becoming hell for workers

Following a recent Government decree, collective bargaining rights have been curtailed, independent unions have been all but outlawed, basic working conditions such as overtime pay have been scrapped, and union leaders are subjected to daily harassment and intimidation.

Fijian workers have few rights; they go to work each day in fear. They know that any attempts to stand up for their rights have grave physical repercussions; and not just for themselves but for their families as well.

About 50% of Fijians live below the poverty line, including more than half of those in full-time employment.

Fijians need more worker rights, not less

Show your support for Fiji’s workers; visit the campaign page.