A Sick Joke

You remember those old jokes like the signs that say “credit only granted to those over 80 accompanied by both parents” ?

Well how about this for a new twist:

If the employee is unable to attend work for reasons other than an emergency (as determined by the company), the employee must provide 12 hours verbal notice. If the employee breaches this clause, the employee expressly authorises the company to deduct from the employee’s weekly remuneration the amount of $200.

In other words, if you are going to be too sick to work you need to give at least 12 hours notice beforehand, otherwise you get fined $200 in addition to not getting paid for the time you are unable to work.

Unfortunately this is not a joke, this is from the very real “Australian Workplace Agreement” which a mining company tried to force Lorissa Stevens to sign, with the company representative apparently attempting to browbeat her into signing.

Lorissa Stevens: She stood over me, basically said that if I didn’t sign the AWA that I would not have a job with the company, and that she would personally go out of her way to destroy me and make sure I didn’t enter in on another Hunter Valley mine site again.

In addition to this craziness the AWA in question also abolishes their workers sick leave (hence no pay for being off sick) as well as cutting their pay rates.

This is in a mining industry where safety is meant to be a top priority, but obviously it can’t be that important to this mob if they’re willing to risk making sick people work to avoid getting fined in addition to no pay..

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