The Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union have been invited to give evidence at the senate committee public hearing into the proposed Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015. The public hearing will be held in Canberra at Parliament house on the morning of Friday the 13th of November.
The AUWU will be sending at least one representative to convey our grave concerns regarding the changes proposed in the bill, which if approved will give Employment Service Providers sweeping new powers to financially penalise unemployed workers. Our specific concerns are all available for you to read in our submission to the committee, available here.
To help us effectively oppose the proposal, we strongly encourage all unemployed workers to send us submissions of their experiences with employment service providers.
Specifically, we are looking for unemployed workers who have been sanctioned or financially penalised by their employment service provider to tell us about their experiences, with a particular focus on those who have received ‘No Show Ho Pay’ penalties.
In your submission to the AUWU, be sure to include information regarding:
1) The reason the Employment Service Provider gave for penalising you;
2) Whether you thought the penalty was justified or if you appealed against the penalty;
3) What were the practical effects of the penalty (i.e. did it cause you financial hardship, how did it effect your job search efforts, etc).
Please send your submissions to contact@unemployedworkersunion.com and we may table it at the senate committee.
If you would like to give evidence in person at the committee, send us an email to tell us why.