Wednesday 18th February 2009

Asian Women at Work has also made some (more recent) comments:

“The lack of protections in WorkChoices has increased the hardship for this already vulnerable workforce” said Debbie Carstens, Development Officer for Asian Women at Work.  “The Fair Work Bill improves their situation but falls short in a number of ways.  For example, unfair dismissal laws are returned, but workers in businesses of less than 15 employees can be sacked after a single warning, that doesn’t even need to be in writing.” 

“When you work all day in fear of the supervisor abusing you in front of work mates and customers, when you are not allowed a break from 7.30am until lunch at 1pm, when you are only paid $8-10 an hour, when you  work 6 or 7 days a week with no overtime pay, when the boss is more concerned about the clothes that fell on the floor than she is about the worker who is trapped under the rack of clothes, then surely you should be able to expect the government to take action to protect you!” says Angela Zhang, Chinese Community Worker from Asian Women at Work.

“The Fair Work Bill needs to give unions greater access to workplaces to check if workers are receiving the basic entitlements we expect in our Australian society and that someone needs to be checking the individual flexibility agreements which can be made between employers and employees to be sure they actually meet the ‘Better Off Overall Test’, along with a range of other concerns” reported Debbie Carstens.

Asian Women at Work has been involved in community work with migrant women workers in low paid employment for more than 15 years.

Contacts:    Debbie Carstens – 0437 879 442;   Angela Zhang – 0448 708 003;   Hanh Le – 0409 841 208
Asian Women at Work Inc
PO Box 253, Bankstown NSW 1885       Ph 02) 9793 9708  Fax 02) 9793 9106
Email:  coordinator@awatw.org.au   Website:  www.awatw.org.au