{"id":7933,"date":"2020-03-21T08:55:23","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T21:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/?p=7933"},"modified":"2025-07-28T13:59:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T03:59:15","slug":"beingbetterstartswithyoupm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/archive\/beingbetterstartswithyoupm\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Being better starts with you, Prime Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

OPINION: Being better starts with you, Prime Minister<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Written by United Workers Union National President Jo-Anne Schofield<\/em><\/p>\n

The Corona-Crisis has exposed the deep fault-lines of inequality in Australia and around the globe.<\/p>\n

Australia has 3.3 million workers in insecure work.\u00a0 These are workers who live week to week, often in casual or gig-type shifts in sectors like hospitality, clubs, pubs, tourism, sport and the arts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There\u2019s been a lot of talk about the impact of COVID-19 on these businesses \u2013 and rightly so. Many will be forced to dramatically scale back services, or close for a period, perhaps permanently.<\/p>\n

But it is the workers in these businesses that will bear the brunt of the economic consequences of COVID-19.\u00a0 Surely it\u2019s time to talk about them.<\/p>\n

The United Workers Union is hearing daily stories of workers being treated as disposable in a downturn.\u00a0 Many are losing shifts or being stood down with little more than an email and the Centrelink number.<\/p>\n

These are the workers who brew our coffee, pour our beer, cook or serve our food in restaurants.\u00a0 They are paid modestly at best, with many living below the poverty line. They do not have leave to tide them over.\u00a0 They can\u2019t work from home.\u00a0 They still need to pay rent and put food on the table, finance their studies, and support their families.<\/p>\n

Particularly vulnerable are migrants, working here on temporary visas whose livelihood is tied to that of their employer.\u00a0 These are the invisible workers who keep our kitchens, farms and other services going.\u00a0 They lack basic access to Medicare or welfare payments.\u00a0 Many are from countries whose borders may shortly close.\u00a0 What will happen to them?<\/p>\n

These are the workers who already struggle with insecure jobs, exploitation and wage theft.\u00a0 They are the workers who saw thousands of dollars ripped out of their pay packets due to penalty rate cuts.<\/p>\n

They have been, for many years, existing at the pointy end of inequality.<\/p>\n

This Federal Government has willingly turned its back on these workers by failing to show leadership and support all Australians during this crisis.\u00a0 As of today, all that is being offered is that workers can join the long queues at Centrelink and hope for small change to tide them over.<\/p>\n

This week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison when urging us to \u201cstop hoarding\u201d said \u201cthat is not who we are as a people.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, we can be better, but so can our government. Just look to overseas for an example of bold action to support workers:\u00a0 Ireland has introduced a\u00a0COVID_19 payment\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0for anyone who is unemployed or has their hours cut.\u00a0 Denmark will cover\u00a075 per cent of private sector employees<\/a>\u2019 salaries if bosses don\u2019t cut staff.\u00a0 New Zealand\u2019s\u00a0package<\/a>\u00a0includes sick leave and isolation payments, as well as subsidies to keep workers in jobs.<\/p>\n

If we truly are to be better, it starts with you, Prime Minister.\u00a0 But we have to worry that again, the Prime Minister will turn a blind eye to hospo and other workers facing more uncertainty.\u00a0 We have to worry that he will again, let them down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OPINION: Being better starts with you, Prime Minister Written by United Workers Union National President Jo-Anne Schofield The Corona-Crisis has exposed the deep fault-lines of inequality in Australia and around the globe. Australia…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[202],"tags":[101],"class_list":["post-7933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-hospitality"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65088,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7933\/revisions\/65088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.uwu.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}