CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Do you know someone who looks like they might need a good chat?
Perhaps they lost their steady job during the pandemic and were made to look like overpaid bludgers by a villainous CEO who hides behind a PR machine’s narrative that he is committed to social justice causes.
Maybe they were forced to seek new employment in a job market that had been shattered by public health protocols, while their bosses boosted their shareprice by hoarding all of the tax-payer funded stimulus packages that were meant for workers.
Perhaps they are feeling a little down after having to watch their once proud job politicised for three years, as their former employers blamed customers for the mistakes that resulted from replacing them with unskilled labour hire?
Well today is R U OK? Day and the organisation is encouraging Australians to reach out and have important conversations with friends who might need it.
Or in some corporate workplaces, the head office might want their middle management to ask their bottom rung staff that important question? Or encourage them to ask each other that question.
However, in the case of Australia’s flagship carrier – bosses can be forced to ask that question too.
This comes as Qantas says it will move swiftly to compensate nearly 1700 workers, and ask them RUOK.
The uncharacteristically humane behaviour follows a High Court decision that found baggage handlers and ground staff were sacked illegally during the pandemic in a saga that could cost the airline up to $200 million.
But would still leave it with savings from the decision to outsource their loyal staff with a rotating workforce of unskilled labourers.
The Federal Court will determine the scale of fines to be levied against Qantas for breaching the Fair Work Act and compensation for the 1683 sacked workers, some of whom were generational employees whose family’s had settled in the suburbs surrounding Australian airports purely for this line of work.
As Australian media outlets try their hardest to report this story without mentioning the fact that this matter only ended up before the High Court because of the hard work of the Transport Workers Union – the tech giants are now starting to panic that the TWU will also force them to start asking their gig-economy slaves in the delivery workforce RUOK as well.
