On The Job is back and with new hosts: Kleo Cruse and Emma Hartley. This episode is for all workers with a reproductive system – yes, that’s you!

The social stigma attached to menstruation and menopause often means workers are enduring the pain of normal bodily functions in silence.

We chat to Ann-Marie Allan from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and Kate Marshall from the Health And Community Services Union about how reproductive leave can help ease some of that pain.

Keen to have reproductive leave at your workplace? Get things kickstarted by joining your union.

Support the show: https://www.onthejobpodcast.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The last pod in our summer series takes a look at one of 2022's best pieces of investigative journalism.

Since it arrived on our streets over a decade ago, Uber has prided itself on being a "disrupter" with little regard for convention.

At the heart of their business model is a fanatical commitment to upend the employer/employee relationship and create a new army of sole contractors working on their tech platform with Uber having no responsibility for them, and with drivers having no rights and entitlements.

This high-tech exploitation has made it a massive company that has caused controversy wherever it goes.

In July of 2022 the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) dropped a trove of documents and emails from Uber's inner sanctum that reveal how the company was able to curry favour with governments and institutions around the world to achieve its aims.

The Uber Files are a stunning insight into how Uber inveigled their way into the realm of prime ministers, presidents, bureaucrats and power brokers to get things done. 

Fergus Shiel is the Managing Editor of the ICIJ. He oversaw the Uber Files project.

Fergus joined us on the line from his home in Washington DC to discuss the contents of the Uber Files and their implication.

 

You can now email us with your comments, story ideas, tip-offs, flip offs, and questions - [email protected]

On the Job is made by Australian Unions.

More about On The Job podcast

Need help with working conditions?

Call Australian Union Support Centre - 1300 486 466

 

About the host

Francis Leach is Editor at Large for the Australian Council of Trade Unions

Twitter - @SaintFrankly

Support the show: https://www.onthejobpodcast.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week in our summer series, we head back to August 2022 to examine the growing demands for food assistance from workers and their families.

The promise of the Australian Dream is that you should be able to work one decent, secure job and earn enough pay to put a roof over your head, support your family and thrive.

That all seems like a pipe dream in the current climate, where insecure work, no entitlements, climbing inflation, and a housing squeeze means that hard-working Australians are driven to the margins.

Many of them are turning to organisations like Foodbank to help them make ends meet.

Foodbank is Australia’s largest food relief organisation, operating on a scale that makes it crucial to the work of the front-line charities who are feeding vulnerable Australians.

Foodbank provides more than 70% of the food rescued for food relief organisations nationwide.

Matt Tilley is acting of CEO at Foodbank in Victoria.

He joins us on the pod.

 

You can now email us with your comments, story ideas, tip-offs, flip offs, and questions - [email protected]

On the Job is made by Australian Unions.

More about On The Job podcast

Need help with working conditions?

Call Australian Union Support Centre - 1300 486 466

 

About the host

Francis Leach is Editor at Large for the Australian Council of Trade Unions

Twitter - @SaintFrankly

Support the show: https://www.onthejobpodcast.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the latest episode of our summer series, we head back to June 2022.

At the time, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk was launching a hostile takeover bid for one of the world's biggest and most influential social media platforms, Twitter.

At the same time, the Tesla founder has been playing footsy with the libertarian/alt-right, blabbing on about freedom of speech, and promising to unleash the dogs of hate speech and misinformation back onto the platform.

Now had did that all turn out for the man who was then, the world's richest man?

Is it healthy that one individual can amass such outsized wealth and influence whilst tens of millions of people struggle to make a living?

What is the danger that the billionaire class poses to the health of our society?

John L. Campbell is a sociologist and economist at Dartmouth University in New Hampshire in the United States.

He's been writing about these very issues. 

John joined me on the pod to discuss.

 

 

You can now email us with your comments, story ideas, tip-offs, flip offs, and questions - [email protected]

On the Job is made by Australian Unions.

More about On The Job podcast

Need help with working conditions?

Call Australian Union Support Centre - 1300 486 466

 

About the host

Francis Leach is Editor at Large for the Australian Council of Trade Unions

Twitter - @SaintFrankly

Support the show: https://www.onthejobpodcast.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the first episode in our summer series, where we take a look back at some of the great conversations we had in 2022.

Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz is one of the world's great thinkers. Professor Stiglitz won the 2001 Nobel Prize for his ground-breaking work in economics.

Professor Stiglitz's work in pushing back against neo-liberal free market economic models and arguing for the importance of empowering workers and unions to build a more equitable economy is revered.

He served as an advisor in the Clinton White House, holds a professorship at Columbia University, and was the first person the Greek government called for help when it faced a financial meltdown in 2010.

He was is in Australia in July of 2022 to talk with Unions, workers, and the newly elected Labor government, and he joined me in conversation.

 

You can now email us with your comments, story ideas, tip-offs, flip offs, and questions - [email protected]

On the Job is made by Australian Unions.

More about On The Job podcast

Need help with working conditions?

Call Australian Union Support Centre - 1300 486 466

 

About the host

Francis Leach is Editor at Large for the Australian Council of Trade Unions

Twitter - @SaintFrankly

Support the show: https://www.onthejobpodcast.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australian workers know all too well the dangers posed by working in an unsafe environment where being on the job means exposure  to dangerous, toxic airborne substances.

Zac Smith is the Acting National Secretary of the CFMEU. He's our guest on this week's pod to discuss silicosis, and what Unions are doing to stop it. 

The cruel punishment suffered by workers because of asbestos exposure lives long in the memory of the Union movement.

Now, there is another airborne scourge in many workplaces that needs to be eliminated.
Silicosis is a deadly disease caused by exposure to Silica dust, which is prevalent in the types of Engineered stone common in Australian homes and industries.

 

You can now email us with your comments, story ideas, tip-offs, flip offs, and questions - [email protected]

On the Job is made by Australian Unions.

More about On The Job podcast

Need help with working conditions?

Call Australian Union Support Centre - 1300 486 466

 

About the host

Francis Leach is Editor at Large for the Australian Council of Trade Unions

Twitter - @SaintFrankly

Support the show: https://www.onthejobpodcast.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Big business and corporations are always thinking about new and more subtle ways to change the perceptions and narrative about how they operate.

On this week's edition of "On the Job", Emma Hartley and Kleo Cruse from ACTU HQ tell us about the bosses latest trick - "Woke-Washing."

 

You can now email us with your comments, story ideas, tip-offs, flip offs, and questions - [email protected]

On the Job is made by Australian Unions.

More about On The Job podcast

Need help with working conditions?

Call Australian Union Support Centre - 1300 486 466

 

About the host

Francis Leach is Editor at Large for the Australian Council of Trade Unions

Twitter - @SaintFrankly

Support the show: https://www.onthejobpodcast.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week was a huge one for workers across the country as Labor passed its new Industrial Relations laws, The Secure Jobs Better pay bill.

Australian Unions have spent a decade campaigning for a fairer deal when it comes to our workplace laws, and the Albanese government has started the work of repairing our broken system with this legislation.

The Secretary of the ACTU, Sally McManus is my guest this week discussing the implications of these new laws.

Also, we're joined by Jamie Newlyn, Assistant Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia, to discuss the attempt by a big international shipping company to shut down Australia's port and lock out its workforce.

 

You can now email us with your comments, story ideas, tip-offs, flip offs, and questions - [email protected]

On the Job is made by Australian Unions.

More about On The Job podcast

Need help with working conditions?

Call Australian Union Support Centre - 1300 486 466

 

About the host

Francis Leach is Editor at Large for the Australian Council of Trade Unions

Twitter - @SaintFrankly

Support the show: https://www.onthejobpodcast.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australian workers are finding that what money they do earn is no longer anywhere near enough to pay the bills.

Yet, employer and business groups are sharpening their attacks on Labor’s plan to get wages moving with its “Secure Jobs Better Pay” industrial relations legislation.

Richard Denniss is the Chief Economist with the Independent think tank, The Australia Institute. 

He’s not fooled by the bleating bosses. He joins us once again on the pod to talk about the silent crisis they don’t want you to know about - The Profit Crisis.

_____________________________________________________________

* You can now email us with your comments, story ideas, tip-offs, flip offs, and questions - [email protected]

*On the Job is made by Australian Unions.

More about On The Job podcast

Need help with working conditions?

Call Australian Union Support Centre - 1300 486 466

 

About the host

Francis Leach, ACTU - @SaintFrankly

Support the show: https://www.onthejobpodcast.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the FIFA World Cup gets underway in Qatar this week, the plight of migrant workers who have built the stadiums that are hosting the games will dissolve into the background for many people.

For others though, this World Cup has become as much about human rights and workers safety and freedom from exploitation as it is about the scores and results.

On this week's pod, I take a deep dive into the issue of workers and human rights in Qatar.

Have reforms made it ok to play the world's greatest sporting event in that country?

 

_____________________________________________________________

* You can now email us with your comments, story ideas, tip-offs, flip offs, and questions - [email protected]

*On the Job is made by Australian Unions.

More about On The Job podcast

Need help with working conditions?

Call Australian Union Support Centre - 1300 486 466

 

About the host

Francis Leach, ACTU - @SaintFrankly

Support the show: https://www.onthejobpodcast.com.au/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.