Most charities contract with private companies to raise funds over the phone or face to face in the streets. Oftentimes, these private companies engage workers as sham contractors as a way of avoiding the legal responsibilities they owe to their employees. This means fundraising workers can end up working full-time hours while taking home nothing or next to nothing in pay at the end of a week. This isn’t fair. The charities who engage these private fundraising companies have the power to fix this problem. They have the power to fix up their contracting chain and make sure their fundraising workers are paid legally.

Health care is a universal right and should be about patient care. A private operator will have to generate profit. That can only be achieved by underpaying or reducing staff and scrimping on services. Ultimately it’s the patients that suffer. If it's the choice between treating a private patient or one on Medicare we all know who misses out. We want to ensure our hospitals remain in public hands for the benefit of everyone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFTflWk8h5Q

Southport Sharks club prides itself on being a leader within the Queensland Clubs Industry, the same industry that is calling for the slashing of penalty rates. Clubs Australia, the UNION for club employers, made a public submission to the Fair Work Commission calling for weekend and public holiday penalty rates to be slashed by up to half of the current rates. This could see employees’ lose up to $110 a week from their pay packets - a cut they can’t afford and don’t deserve. Southport Sharks wants you to believe it’s a community club that cares about locals – sadly for the locals they hire that’s not the case. Southport Sharks claims to be one of the largest and most successful Queensland clubs with over 50,000 members. Such a successful club can surely afford to stand up for its staff when their rights are under attack?!

Trucking laws in NSW, known as 'Chapter 6', have been in operation since 1984 to ensure owner drivers and contractors are supported by minimum conditions that provide for cost recovery and basic safety standards. Not only must these conditions be preserved, but they should be extended to support 30-day payments so these small trucking businesses can maintain cash flow, and help hold powerful industry clients to account for rates and conditions in the transport industry.

Insurance companies offer their staff financial incentives if they can figure out a way to avoid paying for injured workers' costs. They celebrate "wins" when they can deny -- or delay -- workers compensation. They even hold an awards ceremony each year to celebrate their success. But while they celebrate, injured workers are contemplating suicide. Insurance agents are dealing in human misery. We need to stop rewarding them for it. I lost my arm and was almost killed while working on a crusher at work. I had to break my own arm and use the broken bone to rip my arm off, in order to save my life. But that was still not as bad as the process of trying to get my insurance claim sorted. If you're seriously injured at work, you don't want the person assessing your compensation claim to get a cash bonus and a prize to turn you down. But that's what's happening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SdZ0IOvlag&feature=youtu.be

We are the cleaners at 469 La Trobe Street. Between us, we have decades of experience keeping your building clean and safe. But we’ve just been told that we are out of a job because the new cleaning company Elite Property care wants to replace us. Questions for the building manager? If you’ve got more to say, send your concerns to the building manager, CBRE, via Peter Starsunn, National Operations Manager at [email protected].

I've worked for two different bosses at Subway - but it's the same experience every time. Wage theft. Unpaid training. Bullying. And I know that there are thousands of other young workers right around Australia just like me. Young workers who are being paid at less than the Award rate, working overtime for no pay, facing intimidation and threats from franchisees, and being expected to complete the official Subway training program "Subway University" in our own time. https://youtu.be/UolcRec2Ezs When I tried to report this wage theft to Subway's head office, I was told that there was nothing they could do. But that's a lie. Subway's head office has a responsibility to make sure the people it permits to run businesses under it's brand are not exploiting workers. This isn't just one "bad egg" franchisee. This is systematic. Subway needs to take responsibility for this mess. Read more about the investigation into Subway's underpayments: https://www.theage.com.au/business/small-business/subway-under-investigation-by-fair-work-over-staff-underpayment-20190809-p52flv.html

In an outrageous act of corporate greed, 55 CUB workers were terminated without notice and then offered a take-it-or-leave-it non-union deal with a 65 per cent reduction in monetary entitlements and cuts to most of their hard-won conditions. The Abbotsford CUB brewery makes huge profits producing leading brands like VB, Crown Lager, Melbourne Bitter, Carlton Dry, Pure Blond and Strongbow. It’s shameful that CUB workers are paying a price for being union and doing their job well, while SAB Miller (CUB's parent company) made $4.4 billion in profits this year and is currently part of the biggest ever corporate takeover in the history of the global beer industry. We need your support to call on CUB to reinstate the workers and end their shameful anti-worker, anti-union tactics.

NUW members in Bendigo recently won a protracted legal case to get entitlements they were owed paid to them following the collapse of Empire Rubber in 2006. However of the $4.5 million win, workers will never see a cent. Nothing. All because corporate law firms are swallowing the win up in fees. LCM Litigation Fund Pty Ltd and Piper Alderman have pocketed 91% of the win, $4.1 million dollars, while their clients have been told they will never see any money and there is nothing they can do. NUW member and former Empire Rubber worker Shane Hogan is owed $15,000. His wife Tracy has said that “To get a letter saying that it’s all been eaten up in fees is very disappointing.” “A lot of people who were laid off did not gain employment afterwards, so they were really relying on getting that money”. Members refuse to accept this gross denial of justice. We are calling on Piper Alderman to waive their fees and give their clients the money they have won. The Law Institute of Victoria’s code of ethics calls for lawyers to “advance their clients’ interests above their own” and to “charge fairly for their work”. Clearly Piper Alderman have failed in their ethical obligations to NUW members at Empire Rubber. In pocketing the cash and failing to meet ethical standards, Piper Alderman undermines the integrity of the justice system to serve the needs of workers. Piper Alderman and LCM Litigation Fund: give workers their money back so justice is closer to being served!

Workers on farms across Australia are currently forced to work long hours, often 14 or 16 hours and even up to 22 hours a day. Many are paid cash payments; as low as $4 and commonly $12 or $14 an hour, while the minimum wage is $21.61. These workers pick and pack the fresh fruit and vegetables that we buy at the supermarket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NjOjNAShnQ Many producers use dodgy labour hire contractors to try and cut costs. These labour hire contractors routinely steal workers wages, provide them with substandard accommodation for exorbitant fees, and seek sexual and monetary favours for visas or preferential treatment. Workers who speak up are ignored, silenced or have their employment terminated. All this is happening while the Big Supermarkets engage in 'price wars' during the ad breaks we watch on TV. As a duopoly, Coles and Woolworths have incredible buying power. Competition among producers to supply the supermarkets is immense. Coles and Woolworths exploit their market position to demand that producers supply products at lower and lower cost. Coles and Woolworths claim their Ethical Sourcing Code of Conduct ensures that fresh food products are ethically produced. The reality facing workers on these farms proves that this is not true. When producers are confronted with the choice between complying with codes or losing a supply contract with a Big Supermarket, they choose to cut corners. Even after extreme exploitation and slave-like conditions were exposed on Four Corners in May 2015, workers are still fighting for justice on many farms around Australia. Without workers being able to actively participate in their union and speak up about conditions on farms, codes of conduct will never work. Workers who produce our fresh food are putting out a call to clean up the supply chain, a call for a Fair Food Agreement to immediately outline standard conditions and rights that workers can collectively enact.

200 workers die in Australia every year in avoidable accidents. Each of these deaths destroys or disrupts the lives of dozens of people, sometimes for years. Each workers' absence sends waves of grief and loss through entire communities, and leaves holes that will never be filled. The same companies responsible for these workers deaths take short cuts on safety time and again, because there is no meaningful law to deter their dangerous behaviour.

I’ve been a loyal worker in Kmart’s Truganina Distribution Centre for over two and a half years. Even though I was engaged through a labour-hire company as a casual, the work was regular and reliable. I get on well with my co-workers and manager, and have never had any problems or disciplinary issues at work. I am in my 50s, with a family and the regular work at Kmart has meant a lot to me because it can be hard for older workers to find employment. I thought that after years of hard work and good service this was a steady job and I organised with Kmart to take my first holiday in years, even though I knew this was unpaid because I’m a casual. After my well-earned break, which was approved by my employer, I did not hear from Kmart about shifts. When I called them, I was shocked to be told there was no more work and that I would need to return my security pass. When I tried to find out why, I was told that there was no more work, even though since that time Kmart has engaged a number of new casual labour-hire employees in roles I could easily be performing. I want to go back to work at Kmart. 200 of my co-workers have already signed a petition on site to ask Kmart to bring me back to work, but the company has refused to listen to them. Because of my status as an agency casual, I am left in a legal limbo – despite my service I have no legal claim to reinstatement, even though I have been sacked for taking a holiday, which would be illegal if it happened to a permanent worker. This has left me feeling stressed, has been hard on my family and I just want to go back to work at Kmart.