Your Rights At Work campaign coming to Ballina
The Your Rights At Work big orange bus, pictured, arrives in Ballina on Wednesday August 22, signalling the final countdown to the Federal election and an opportunity for hospital workers to get involved in the Ballina community campaign against WorkChoices.
“John Howard said nothing at the last election about his plans to hit families in the workplace — but voters will not be fooled again,” said John Robertson, secretary of Unions NSW.
Mr Robertson said that hospital workers shouldn’t consider themselves safe from the Howard Government’s WorkChoices agenda.
“No worker is a protected species in a national park – if John Howard is re-elected you can bet that he will force State government’s to hand over IR powers.”
The Your Rights At Work community information evening will be held next Wednesday at 5.30pm at the Slipway Inn function room in River Street.
Mr Robertson is calling on local people to come forward to share their experiences of the real impact of the Howard Government’s IR laws. He also congratulated the Ballina Your Rights at Work community group for their work to date.
“Mr Howard’s laws have made it much harder for people to speak out when they are bullied or ripped off at work, so it’s really important that the community is ready to take a stand and support local workers and their families,” he said.
Mr Robertson said his team will leave behind practical advice and tools to assist those who want to be a part of the campaign to win back rights at work at the Federal election – including a national petition to restore rights at work.
“We’re drawing close to the finish line but we need people to get active and get the message out there that these laws are not okay,” he said.
“Don’t wake up the day after the election and wonder whether you did enough to protect rights at work for generations to come.
“Since the Howard Government’s WorkChoices laws were brought in last year, millions of Australian workers have lost basic rights at work, such as penalty rates, paid overtime, control over hours of work and job security. Let your local member know that this is not okay.”
