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Senate Inquiry submission 2018

rozie
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 04:29:56 GMT

I sustained a workplace injury in 2011 & have not been able to return to my much loved trade as a sample machinist. In 2012 & 2013 I retrained at my local TAFE & gained a Certificate III in Business & Administration, Certificate IV in Training, Assessment & Education, Intermediate MS Word & Excel & MYOB bookkeeping. As advised by government, I have worked diligently to transition into a new field by adopting an innovative & dynamic approach to maximise my success with finding full-time, ongoing employment. I have networked. I have schmoozed. I have worked for free. I have demonstrated flexibility & initiative by undertaking the education & training necessary to prove to prospective employers that I would be a “good bet”. I am nimble & I am agile - you won’t find anyone more motivated & ready to work. So where’s my job? I have made countless cold-calls & have volunteered 100’s of hours of unpaid labour at various organisations including soup kitchens, homeless shelters & Members of Parliament. Yet despite my best efforts I have been unable to secure a full-time, ongoing administration role within government or the private sector. Since 2013 I have held 9 different jobs; all but one of them temporary contractor roles via recruitment agencies. I am currently unemployed & fiercely looking for work 7 days a week. I enjoy working (I really do!) & have been employed full-time since the age of 15. For me, work means dignity. I’m the happiest I can be when I’m working because it gives meaning & purpose to my life & allows me to contribute to society & pay my taxes. Not having a job is a profound embarrassment for me. I feel worthless & have become increasingly sad & at risk of financial distress. The difficulties I have experienced in trying to find work have been compounded by having to navigate the current broken system of private job service providers. (Please remind me just what it is they are providing?) The staff I have encountered have been unprofessional, uncaring, untrained & dishonest. They treat their clients with contempt & seem utterly unwilling to acknowledge each person’s individual circumstances. I have been harassed, bullied & lied to by JSP staff on many occasions & as a result have submitted formal complaints to the department as well as to the head office of my previous provider. My current provider (Salvation Army Employment Plus in Preston, Victoria) tried to force me to complete their “online registration survey” by insisting it was a compulsory activity & that non-compliance would result in my “payments being affected” i.e. suspended or cancelled. This survey appears to be a type of psychometric test & includes questions such as: • I am satisfied with being unemployed and don’t want to change now ⃝ Agree ⃝ Disagree • I need mental health treatment ⃝ Yes ⃝ No • I am too busy to work ⃝ Agree ⃝ Disagree • I have legal issues that need to be addressed ⃝ Yes ⃝ No • If I knew I wouldn’t lose all of my benefits, I would try to get a job ⃝ Agree ⃝ Disagree • I need substance abuse treatment ⃝ Yes ⃝ No These types of questions will not increase my chances of finding a job. They are patronising in the extreme & deeply offensive to me. I believe they also fail the duty of care requirement in that they are intrusive & may pose a trigger risk for people suffering mental health issues. It wasn’t until I asked to speak to the manager (Sheb) that I was told the survey was not a compulsory activity after all. I have since submitted a formal complaint to the department regarding this issue. Sheb also informed me that I must take responsibility to find my own work as S.A.E.P, along with every other JSP, were not legally obliged to provide employment assistance to their clients during the first 13 weeks of registration. When I asked Sheb what her organisation is being paid to do, she replied “we monitor your compliance”. When I suggested people should receive support immediately following the loss of employment as it increases their chances of finding work sooner, she replied that I was perfectly capable of looking for work myself. I was also forced to sign a job plan that I do not agree with. Despite my current provider’s “Service Delivery Plan” stating they will “provide a personalised plan to employment” they refused to allow me to negotiate my job plan. The contract is vague & contains no detail regarding types of required activities & training or frequency of compulsory appointments. If I had refused to sign this plan, my Newstart payment would have been cancelled. My previous provider also tried to force me to sign a “privacy agreement” which, despite its title, does not protect my privacy at all but instead allows the provider to forward my personal details to any third party of their choosing & for any purpose. Needless to say I did not sign this document. Unfortunately, my current job plan now incorporates a similar “privacy agreement” which I object to in the strongest possible terms. I had no choice but to sign this job plan & I wonder if the architects of this system are aware of how demoralising it is to be treated as if you (& your right to privacy) don’t matter. I have never received any assistance from a Jobactive Service Provider that led to a job, let alone an interview. Every time I secured another work contract, my provider harassed me for copies of my payslips. I never gave in to their demands as there is nothing in the Jobactive Deed that states I must provide this information to my JSP. As fully, tax-payer funded organisations, contracted to provide employment services to their clients, they have demonstrated a woeful lack of understanding of what unemployed workers actually need to get their lives back on track. We don’t need to be bullied, threatened, lied to or forced to complete irrelevant training courses. What we desperately need are jobs; suitable, meaningful, properly paid, ongoing jobs & real assistance to find them. Government must commit to a policy of full employment to reverse the tide of misery that unemployment creates. They must also do more to curb business owners’ over-reliance of cheap, imported labour to level the playing field so that local people have the opportunity to work & lead lives of dignity. Those in power must commit to supporting our manufacturing industries by increasing funding to our ailing TAFE sector & enabling the creation of more traineeships & apprenticeships for young people as well as training for older workers to transition into new industries. The current Jobactive system must be de-privatised & a centralised, easily accessible jobs board created that includes all available employment opportunities instead of the scores of online government, commercial & private job sites that currently exist. My JSP has a list of more than 80 online employment sites that job seekers must navigate to find work. This system is broken. My new job plan now states I must “take responsibility” for finding my own work & to report (online) my attendances at all required activities. This begs the question. “What is the provider being paid to do?”

t1lz
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 05:39:40 GMT

My Employment provider has also started saying to clients (I over hear a lot of conversations as I have to do job searching weekly and its an open plan office) "We don't provide employment, we are here to enforce Jobactive requirements". It's just a joke. They are basically there for no other reason than to mete out punishment (suspending payments), and they do not even try to pretend any more that they are helping find people work

rozie
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 08:04:38 GMT

What a disgrace. I'm shocked to hear that your JSP is so open about the fact that they're not there to provide employment services. What a shame no one has ever been able to record these types of conversations. It would prove just how much contempt the JSP's have for their clients not to mention the millions of taxpayers who pay their wages.