There was not a single sex worker on the streets, not a single neon sign advertising a brothel and absolutely no large signs advertising a sex menu the last time I drove down the main street of Waihi. I stopped for coffee and nosed around to make sure I wasn’t missing something before declaring loudly to nobody in particular “I told you so.”
Last week it became public knowledge that 22 workers from one Warehouse store have made written allegations of bullying against their store manager.
The world has forgotten the survivors and the victims. The children being raised without parents have receded in our collective consciousness in the stampede to get to the next shop sale or mega mall opening.
I awoke early on my first day in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to catch the women walking to work in droves. I must have seen thousands, not a child between them, all walking stoically toward the fenced factory doors, their brightly coloured dresses and scarves surreal in the bleak grey surroundings.
When Smith City was ordered to back pay the workers it had been ripping off for 6 years for all unpaid staff meetings, it didn’t take three witches or a crystal ball to know that the flood gates would open. They have. At First Union along with over 1500 people responding to a survey, the call centre and organisers are all being contacted with people wanting to lament all the unpaid hours or the time off never taken in lieu. As the National Organiser for The Warehouse and Cotton On I have received more than my share.
When the strange events of the World fashion label crashed into my radio yesterday I may have snickered. On the one hand I thought how cheeky, but on the other the House of G shopper in me had little sympathy for the people paying a hundy for a fifteen dollar T. However by the time I heard Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet talking to John Campbell I started to lose my shit.
If you are one of those people anxiously still waiting by the mail box for the gifts you ordered online yesterday to arrive before Christmas, I have got bad news. You are going to have get off your butt and join the rest of the Christmas celebrating world and go to the mall.
If you do not know what an Ego Activist is let me explain. You will have one, or if you’re unlucky, more than one on your timeline. But even if you don’t interact in social media the fact is this year they even infiltrated main stream media.
When a person on a benefit is sent to Manpower for a job it is like evicting a family from a secure house and giving them a tent in cyclone season. When the work dries up they are left drowning in debt and hoping for rescue sometime in the next thirteen weeks.
If the workers and customers can invest years of service and loyalty to Westpac, is it too much to expect some of that loyalty and service reciprocated?