Bdos: Unions a waste of time

Some unscrupulous employers in this country are getting away with murder; they are trampling the rights of their employees with impunity. And it’s not to say that none of these employees are members of workers’ organisations. Many of them are fully paid-up members of trade unions.

The most glaring breach of employees’ rights which recently came to my attention is where employers unilaterally change the terms and conditions of the contract of employment.

As recent as last Friday a young lady who works at a South Coast hotel as a waitress informed me that the two janitors at the hotel in question were “severed”, and that she and the other waitresses are now required to mop the floors and clean the toilets.

She also told me that she had made a formal complaint to a “union delegate” but was given “some cock-and-bull story”. She explained it was because of the response, or lack thereof, that she got from the “union delegate” that she decided to call me. I gave her pro bono advice of the legal implications of a unilateral change in her contract of employment.