Tolarno Eating House has stolen tens of thousands in wages and other entitlements from Hospo Voice members. They need to pay up now. Tolarno has tried to wear these workers down, making them wait months and months, ignoring court orders. But these workers’ determination to win justice has only grown stronger, and they have the full support of Hospo Voice members and supporters everywhere. We will stand with them to ensure they are repaid every single cent. Bosses that defy court orders to repay stolen wages deserve to be behind bars.

The data shows payments were suspended 2.7m times in 12 months, but only 654,000 demerits 'points were handed out. This adds up to roughly 2 million unfair penalties being dished out to unemployed workers every year by privately owned agencies. A 75% error is a national disgrace. This unfair compliance regime has had a catastrophic impact on the lives of unemployed workers. As reported by the New Daily, this punitive policy is driving people into poverty, homelessness, mental health issues and even suicide. Kristian Clancy, 32, was cut off his Newstart payment for not attending a employment service provider appointment despite informing his agency he had a shift that day. Melissa Fisher, 37, was cut off her Newstart due to her employment service provider mistakenly reporting she did not attend an appointment. Zeya Raymond* (name changed) was incorrectly cut of by her employment service provider which led to her contemplating suicide. These are only a few of the hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers being unfairly cut off by their privately owned employment service provider. By stripping unemployed workers of their right to appeal unfair penalties and denying them a right to a reasonable excuse, the Coalition is creating a segregated society. Unemployed Australians – people who have ended up unemployed due to no fault of their own – are being branded as second-class citizens. If an unemployed worker faces an abusive employment service provider, there is nothing they can do. They have nowhere to turn. We know the employment services system is broken. In 2018-19, job agencies imposed 2.3 million penalties on unemployed workers - a seven times increase since 2010. Why is the Coalition giving job agencies more powers to punish unemployed workers? Join the AUWU's struggle for dignity. Sign the petition. New Daily Article: https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/08/07/newstart-unfair-suspensions/ Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/08/more-than-120000-people-whose-welfare-was-suspended-were-not-at-fault-data-shows?fbclid=IwAR2-lmi6UIcFmjD4X9CAFGQYAgekL_JuwbMGWEo_neWMp0DgFgg6U7Annsw Guardian article number 2: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/16/automated-messages-welfare-australia-system?CMP=share_btn_tw

The majority of Australians do their grocery shopping at Coles or Woolworths. Yet the farm workers who feed us, who pick and pack the fruit and vegetables we all eat, are enduring wage theft and exploitation on Australian farms. Two thirds of surveyed workers reported earning below minimum wage, sometimes as low as $4.80 per hour. Cash contractors act as controlling mediators between farms and workers, often resulting in stolen wages, no superannuation, sexual harassment, bullying and harassment. Coles and Woolworths must not continue to profit from this exploitation. Add your voice to stand with farm workers today!

Our hours, daily and weekly earnings are lower than they've ever been before, even though we've been doing the same job the whole time. Riders used to be paid $18.50 an hour and now we're not paid an hourly rate at all. Deliveries can be as low as $6 or less, despite Deliveroo promising they wouldn't go below $8 per delivery. There's no transparency and no ability to say no to changes in our wages. We just notice it going down through the app. We work in the cold conditions during winter. We work really hard for peanuts. Seeing our wages go down and down is gut-wrenching. We can't depend on these wages. We are demanding Deliveroo raise our rates of pay and lock them in. Deliveroo workers need security and a living wage. Michael, PK, Radhesh and the Roo Riders

Gambling destroys lives, online gambling has become an absolute epidemic in this country, how can you let addicted players continue to play and lose everything they own, without any questions as to were the money came from, people betting beyond there mean or earning capacity, the banks wouldn't let you borrow 10million dollars if you can't afford it, but you could go online and lose 10mill and nobody would say a word or try and stop you, if online gambling was regulated the same way a home loan is limits could be put on all clients and keep them within there means. It's the greedy govt that allows it to continue, and now there trying to sell it to our kids through funny TV ads while sport is playing, it's like advertising drugs on the television total madness..

George Calombaris is held up as an industry leader, yet he is not the leader the hospitality industry wants or needs. Aside from stealing millions of dollars from hospo workers, he’s been charged with assault. He’s been given enough chances, now it’s time for him to go. Wage theft is rife throughout the hospitality industry. Celebrity chefs like George Calombaris have gotten rich by stealing from their hard-working employees. This issue has stayed in focus for one reason and one reason alone. Because of the relentless agitation and campaigning by Hospo Voice members about wage theft by George and countless other hospitality employers. The hospitality industry is changing, workers will no longer put up with excuses, we want real action on wage theft. How can we expect the industry to improve if we continue to honour celebrity wage thieves. Ten network; it’s George’s turn to face elimination.

Hochi Mama is a Vietnamese restaurant at the top of Melbourne’s Chinatown. It’s also Melbourne’s number one Asian restaurant on the venue rating site, TripAdvisor. I worked there as a bartender. And I was on a flat rate of $20 per hour, no penalty rates. In just four months I had over $3000 (including super) stolen from me. Often, we felt we were treated like dirt. Hochi Mama had a staff WhatsApp group where we got our rosters, we swapped shifts and management would give us instructions about our jobs. This was also how workers found out they’d been fired, by seeing we’d been deleted from the staff WhatsApp group. It happened to me. It happened to lots of other staff. In front of everyone. Most bosses have the decency to actually TELL you that you'd been fired. Not these guys. And it left everyone feeling afraid and wondering: who’s next? Migrant kitchen staff were treated even worse. They worked double shifts of 13-14 hours for a flat rate of $70 or $100, in cash. I even saw them sleeping on milk crates out the back of the restaurant between shifts. It’s not okay for any worker to be treated like this, particularly in a wealthy country like ours. All over this industry, we see migrant workers treated like an underclass. It’s just wrong. We need to stand together and demand fairness and respect for ALL hospo workers. That’s the only way anything is ever going to change.

Our boss, Andre Chaaya, kept promising us that we would get paid. But each week, no money came. Now we realise that was just another lie he told us. As weeks turned into months, rent fell behind, the bills piled up, and grocery shopping wasn’t done. At least one worker was left homeless. One worker was reduced to eating plain rice. A worker has cancelled an overseas trip to a wedding of one her best friends because she doesn’t have any money. Suppliers kept calling the pub, demanding to know when they would get paid. Cheques bounced. A major brewery stopped delivering. The coffee machine was repossessed. Our boss disappeared and we had to keep making excuses for him. Last year Mr Chaaya sold the pub’s building and planned to use the $6.15 million from the sale of the property reinvest in his pub business. Where is that money? Why hasn't he used it to pay us? Please stand with us and insist that Mr Chaaya pay us as his first priority. https://vimeo.com/338783413

WesTrac is refusing to talk to its workforce and resume negotiations and refuses to speak to union representatives. This comes after the employer has been actively trying to strip conditions from its workforce. WesTrac employees took a small 1.9% offer in their last agreement because the times were tough on the condition the company would pass on the profits when it was growing again. WesTrac is now expecting 40% growth this financial year and is still trying to undercut it's workforce at every opportunity. AWU members have been undergoing protected industrial action and will continue to until WesTrac starts to play ball and brings a decent offer to the table. Stand in solidarity with WesTrac members and call on WesTrac to accept the AWUs invitation to resume negotiations.

Workers at the Perfection Fresh glasshouse in South Australia were the first group of workers to kick out dodgy contractors and win their first enterprise agreement. They are now joining with other Perfection Fresh workers to win basic rights as workers, have the company recognise their freedom to be union and make sure workers are able to speak out! By speaking out together and supporting the struggle of brave farmworkers we can make sure REAL action is taken to end worker exploitation and abuse that is happening throughout the supermarket supply chain. "The company puts too much pressure on us and has no respect for our rights. They target any worker that joins the union. The working conditions are extremely unsafe and many of us have become injured. As farmworkers we are asking Coles and Woolworths to support us and help us fight for our right to speak out!" - Safdar, worker and union delegate at Perfection Fresh

I am a bartender at a La La Bar Group venue on Chapel Street and they are stealing about $16,000 (plus super) from me each year I work on weekends and into the early hours of the morning but all I’ve ever got was a flat rate, no penalty rates. All given to me in an envelope stuffed with cash. La La are a big player. They’ve got about 100 staff. They own seven bars on Chapel Street and across Melbourne, including Blue Bar, Electric Ladyland, Holy Grail, Wonderland, Lucky Liquor and La La Land.   $16,000 is a huge amount of money. Long term employees I work with would have had this amount money stolen from them, year in, year out. I don’t understand how a company of this size keeps getting away with stealing so much money from its workers.   What’s clear is that the current rules are a joke. And what has the watchdog done to enforce those rules? Nothing that I can see, where I work, or any of the venues in Chapel Street, where people are working for as little $10 per hour. I feel like we’ve been left to fend for ourselves by this government. It’s wrong. Hospo workers deserve a government that will come down on wage thieves like a ton of bricks.

Problem: There is huge pressure to deliver community infrastructure. Government needs adequate internal capacity but also needs industry to have the skills and staff to deliver the government’s projects. The engineering skills development process is broken. While government has lost capacity, the private sector often lives hand to mouth relying on winning projects and then headhunting to deliver on those projects. This model is not sustainable or desirable and inevitably leads to cost blowouts and delays. Solution: Government procurement is a major driver of economic activity. Procurement can also be used to drive better workforce development outcomes, by encouraging construction companies and consulting engineer firms to develop the next generation of engineers