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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 26. October 2 1978

... and Trouble on the Job

... and Trouble on the Job

Within a couple of weeks one of the other special workers was unfairly dismissed. He was unwilling to fight. I was intensely angry and stirred it up in the tea room. This earned me an invitation to "hear the super boss's side of things". The following day he wanted to see me and the only other worker who supported my rave, separately. We weren't having that on. Lesson number one — bosses use the different status of special worker and ordinary worker as a tool for intimidating special workers! During the interview with this new bureaucrat risen from the ranks of the workers, the whole gamut of anti-worker, divisive, patronising and authoritarian cliches and stances were struck. We talked about getting the union in. The big boss wasn't scared of the union. In any case, he said, "the union had nothing to do with it, the Job was an arrangement between the Labour Department and us. Special workers are taken on on the basis that they work while there is work to do, and can be laid off at any time with a few hours notice and sent back to the Labour Department." We assumed him that he was sadly mistaken. By the end of the day our co-worker was reinstated.