Category Archives: job agency stories

Hi,

I am waiting to hear back about my request to transfer away from my current Disability Employment Services Providers. I submitted three different transfer requests to various agencies via the mutual consent forms filled out by myself and my current provider at an appointment roughly 2-3 weeks ago.

I have tried calling 1800 805 260 but it seems the line is closed after 3pm, and not open before 9am, or the call is simply blocked from going through on the occasions I have tried to call.

Because, when I completed the transfer forms I was in an appointment with my provider, I did not feel able to describe my reasons for requesting transfer aside from “relationship breakdown”. There are numerous reasons, resulting in an overall inability to be serviced by my current provider.

1. They have not responded to my written complaints/feedback at all, or even acknowledged them.

2. In the short time I have been with AtWork, they have changed my case manager at least five or six times. They included: Karen, Fleur, Lisi, Claire, Laura?, and others whose names I don’t recall (n o business cards or direct lines to case managers were ever given to me despite my requests). OFTEN, appointments were cancelled without notice and I when I turned up I had to be seen by someone else totally new to me, and who didn’t appear to know anything about me either. This has made it impossible to develop a relationship or rapport with a case manager and each time I feel like I’m making some progress, I have to start all over again with someone new.

3. With my previous job provider MAX Employment, I had the same case managers for years and felt like my unique challenges were being understood, and I was being helped.

4. None of my case managers with AtWork displayed ANY interest in my disability or my vulnerabilities, with the exception of one case worker – Lisi – who I gave positive feedback about to AtWork. Unfortunately Lisi is no longer employed there.

5. The last appointment I had with AtWork was, in my opinion, emotional abuse. I was told that I do not have a disability, because if I did I would be on the Disability Support Pension. The disinterest, and blatant disregard for my disability, by my DISABILITY Employment Services Provider, has left me feeling despondent, disengaged, and even suicidal. I will never be able to work with this provider again, and I refuse to return to the place that now consumes me with anxiety.

6. During my last ESAT (?), the health professional noted that I have significant functional impairments, and encouraged me to pursue my goal of self-employment from a modified home-based work environment whether my DSP claim was successful or not. This health professional recommended that I transfer to a job provider who specialises in mental health disabilities, and who would be able to help me return to work from a home based business, should my DSP claim be rejected (which it ultimately was). This health professional said the new provider would be instructed to help me with this specific employment pathway, and I would be able to apply for the NEIS program even with a disability affecting my work capacity.

7. AtWork began forcing me to apply for a seemingly arbitrary number of jobs per month, even though I tried to make clear that my disability prevents me from being a serious applicant for pretty much any job, and I have NEVER had this requirement before, despite being engaged with Disability Employment Services Providers for roughly six years, and I felt very uncomfortable applying for jobs that I knew I couldn’t do, and knew would be wasting the time of the employer. The fact that I have never been made to do this job search activity before with my previous DES providers, is likely because they understood the nature of my disability (or perhaps Centrelink instructed them to exempt me, I really have no idea).

8. I applied for the NEIS program myself and completed the pre-NEIS Cert III Micro Business Operations training course in September. AtWork forced me to attend appointments even though I was doing a full-time training course through a Centrelink program.

9. After completing the training course my case manager at the time (Fleur) told me “we might have to think of something else you can do because you don’t seem really passionate about it”. This was in stark contrast to the really amazing NEIS trainers who were very excited about my business idea, and had nothing but praise for my demonstrated work. I got the distinct feeling that AtWork were just trying to keep me in their system, discourage me, and get as many appointments out of me as possible, so they get paid.

10. AtWork refused to pay for any of the training courses, classes, or professional development that I wanted to do to better help me return to work. They tried to get me to do courses with their affiliate RTOs that were not related to my employment efforts and that I expressed no interest in doing.

I really do hope that these reasons are enough to switch me back to my old provider MAX Employment, because there’s a very real possibility that I will end up in far worse health, and with far worse employment prospects if I am forced to stay with AtWork against my will.

Thankyou for your time,

Matthew

Trans-Ed or Foundation Skills as it is otherwise known, targets ‘transitioning’ welfare recipients including those on disability payments ‘ toward work’ as part of the government’s ongoing policy of war on welfare.

The scheme comes in two stages of nine months for each stage. For the agencies, contracted at $15,000 per head, the goal is to run the DSP recipient through both courses and reap between $300-360,000 of government subsidies per class of 20.

Like Work for the Dole, the new regulations governing payments to the handicapped are sold under the guise of ‘providing opportunity’, ‘helping the disabled gain entry to the work-force’ or ‘giving youth a chance to learn new skills’, when in fact the scheme is simply an extension of the same welfare bashing snake oil in a new bottle.

Bullying and authoritarianism were the order of the day. During the early weeks of the course I was constantly reminded by management to “get tough on ‘em, don’t be too soft”.

It wasn’t long before I witnessed the ‘get tough on ‘em’ policy in action.

“Margret”, a woman in her mid-50s suffered from crippling depression. Wan and frail with heavy dark circles under her eyes, she told me that she had to force herself to leave the house. As a result she was often late or absent from class.

On a day she managed to attend, the course co-ordinator was taking the class. The co-ordinator immediately flew into her and began a tirade about punctuality, and “mutual obligation”. Margret was ushered into an interview room, she was joined by her case-officer.

I watched for half an hour as the the two of them brow-beat and bullied the unfortunate woman for the crime of arriving late to class. When Margret left, she never returned.

A few weeks later, her case officer approached me to tell me Margret had been breached (loss of all payments) for three months.

There were those suffering from epilepsy, depression, and heart conditions which, under the new guidelines, do not exclude them from looking for a job or doing voluntary work. I witnessed a gentle bear of a man have an epileptic seizure, and talented young artist shaking like a leaf during a panic attack. Both had their claims for disability payment rejected.

Davina, a woman in her early sixties, suffered a heart attack one week-end and similarly to Daniel Blake was left in limbo while her claim for DSP was processed. She scrambled desperately to be allowed to re-join the course but was rebuffed by the management “because we don’t want her having a another heart attack on the premises.”

When I left the job, Davina was still in limbo and in all likelihood has had her claim for DSP rejected and remains on Newstart with the requirement of looking for 40 jobs a month.

At the end of the course, the DS provider picked up a cheque for $180,000 of the tax payers’ hard earned for the twelve remaining learners in the course and were paid pro-rata for the eight who had either dropped out, or like Margret and Davina, had been forced out.

The learners were handed a piece of laminated cardboard bearing the DS providers logo and assured the world that the above named had attained completion of Transitional Education Stage One.

A $15,000 government funded ‘qualification’ for participating in an employment program which provides as many real world skills as an egg and spoon race.

The three learners classified as intellectually disabled were offered a place in stage two of the Trans-Ed program, the rest were told that they could take a ‘discounted’ Jobactive Provider approved course -Hospitality, Aged Care – at their own expense.

The corruption and inefficient practices the privatized, profit seeking employment agencies has been well documented in the mainstream media and long since exposed as fraud in both Australia and the UK.

The largest slice of the government subsidies pie to the JNS/DSP system is spent on executive salaries, and the car parks of the “not-for-profit” providers resemble show-rooms for late model fuck-off size Beamer’s and Benz.

The catch is that under the government’s new guidelines, the focus is on the 11.3% of the disabled clinically diagnosed as having mental or behavioral disabilities can qualify for DS payment, leaving the 83.9% of the physically disabled to the tender mercies of the job network providers and a private sector unable or unwilling to provide the necessary infrastructure to accommodate disabled employees.

In short, a system designed not to help the disabled but to knee-cap the handicapped.

I am 58 years old now and I lost my full time job on the first of June, 2011. I was working for Borders when they went under. I ran the music and movie department and I was very happy there. I went to Centrelink and registered as unemployed. I was case managed by Mission Australia, who never referred me to a single job and only seemed to be there to torment me into a job. I did the TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) at the Adelaide College of TAFE. Mission Australia initially told me that they’d help pay the $3,500 for the course, then two weeks later, after I’d paid for the course with my own money, they told me that they would not help me pay for the course. While I was doing my TESOL course I was notified by Mission Australia that I would have to attend a three week course on the subject of preparing for and going to job interviews, this was when I was halfway through my TAFE course. I politely but firmly told them that I would be unable to attend their course because I was already studying four days per week for the next few months. They rescheduled the course until after I’d finished with TAFE.  I subsequently did the three week course and was no wiser at the end of it. I have been both an employee and a business own in my life and I could have run through the course offered to me in a single day, if I was asked to do so. The course interfered with my life, was time consuming and offered nothing of value.  Eventually, I asked to be moved to a different job agency. I found Mission Australia made no effort to help me at all and only existed to make money from the government for bothering and threatening the unemployed.

In 2014 I was moved to PVS Jobfind in Kilkenny, Adelaide. It was right next door to Mission Australia. The place was a little different. For starters everyone who worked at Mission Australia seemed to be a woman under the age of 25. I was seen by a man at PVS, admittedly a rather young man who seemed reasonably sympathetic. I went to PVS once per month and let them know about my physical and mental declines (I have chronic cellulitis in my right leg, clinical depression, I am subject to panic and anxiety attacks and I have a host of other symptoms).

Then on the 23rd of February, 2015, a bomb went off. A very big bomb indeed. The ABC television program, 4 Corners, did an exposé on job agency industry entitled “The Jobs Game”. I invite you to watch it here, if you haven’t already seen it: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/02/23/4183437.htm

Shortly after this program aired, both Mission Australia and PVS as well as another job agency vanished from their offices at Kilkenny in Adelaide and presumably from elsewhere as well.

So, for six months I was in limbo, which didn’t bother me in the slightest. I was very ill and getting worse and I have many things that were concerning me and looking for jobs was a low priority. Then, out of the blue, I found myself referred to a place with the grand name of Jobs Statewide. This place seemed a little more gung-ho than the two previous places I had been to, but it still seemed to be staffed by ex-checkout chicks and night-fill lads from a suburban supermarket. I was told that I would have to come in twice each month, and even though this is 2.1 kilometres from my home, there are no convenient bus or train routes and to get their I either had to shell out for a taxi or catch a train into the city and then walk some distance for a bus to the Arndale shopping centre, where Jobs Statewide is located. I implored them to do my interviews by phone, because of my declining health and there answer was a firm “no can do.”    My doctor gave me an three month exemption from looking for work, which helped me get my life in order a little.

By mid 2016 my health, both mental and physical was in sharp decline. Over the last four years I have attempted suicide five times. My ex-wife left me for another man in 2010 and this was just the beginning of my decline. I had a series of medical tests performed on me and it was discovered that in addition of depression and cellulitis, I have diverticulitis, very low testosterone levels, I am losing red blood cells at a prodigious rate, I have severe anemia and will require regular infusions of blood, I have a thyroid condition, fatty liver, an inflamed oesophagus, my blood sugar levels are out of whack and, to top it all off, I have glaucoma and I have already lost 30% of my vision in my left eye. My GP, who is a very kind and understanding man, has suggested to me that I go on disability until my health improves or if it improves, which is doubtful.

So, in October of this year (2016), after a lot of blood, sweat and tears, the head office of Jobs Statewide admitted that I would probably be better served to a job agency that catered for my needs and Status Employment was offered to me. It is located in Dale Street of Port Adelaide and I can get there by train. I live directly across from the West Croydon railway station. However, the offices of Status Employment are, for me, a considerable walk and getting there from the railway station is very painful for me.

So, two Fridays ago, I set off for my 13:30 appointment with Status Employment. I got there fifteen minutes early, hoping to get the interview over and done with as quickly as possible. However, I was informed that the person who was to interview me was at lunch. She finally saw me forty minutes later. I was again confronted by a girl who I estimate wasn’t even as old as my oldest son, Chris, who recently turned twenty four. I was proudly told that Status doesn’t have a “get ’em in, get ’em out” attitude and they prefer to spend time with their victims…… ahem! … I mean “clients”! I was duly told what are my obligations and what I must do (I was alarmed at how often the word “must” came up in the conversation vis-à-vis my side of the deal with this organisation).
About twenty minutes into the conversation I asked this: “I am an honest Australian citizen in my late fifties. I have paid my taxes all my life and I been both an employer and employee. So what exactly are my human rights here, as an Australian citizen?”
She seemed confused and I repeated my question, “What are my rights here?”
She answered that we will get to those towards the end of the interview.
We got toward the end of the interview and I was told a number of things, including:

1. I must attend an interview with Status Employment every two weeks.
2. I must choose an activity which including weekly attendance at a “job club” or a “work for the dole scheme” or do “fifteen hours of volunteer work per week” or do a Centrelink approved further education course.
3. I must sign a job plan then and there on the spot.

After two unproductive hours (in my humble opinion) I was ready to sign this accursed “job plan” just so that I could get home and rest. I again asked about my human rights and this made the young lady fidget with her pen even more. However, she could not answer my question. Or maybe she would not? Who knows!?
I apologised to the young woman who interviewed me and said that it must be very tiresome to have to interview a cranky old so-and-so like me on a Friday afternoon when she is probably thinking about what she’s going to be doing on the weekend.  She told me that I was actually unusually polite and that I wasn’t a problem at all. She also told me that there are jobs out there for anyone who wants them. I had to suppress a snigger at that.
However, I did tell her that I felt like a newly released convict who was being interviewed by a probation officer to make sure I hadn’t been naughty in the past week instead of a dignified late middle aged Australian citizen who has lead a productive and law abiding life.

So, it has come to this. Poor and unemployed Australians are to be “motivated” by threatening to take money away from us and wealthy Australians are to be motivated by giving them more money?

Yesterday, the 17th of November, I was required to see the same woman I saw a fortnight ago at Status Employment. In the interim I had posted on Status Employment’s Facebook page that they should make it clear to their clients precisely what their rights are because I wasn’t told when I saw them. Strangely, they approved the post and when I last checked, it was still there.

So yesterday I was told that I must choose an activity and that it is binding upon me to undertake an activity in order to receive my unemployment benefits, which were hard won by the Australian union movement in the 1940s.

Sir Robert Menzies in 1944: “People should be able to obtain these benefits as a matter of right, with no more loss of their own standards of self-respect than would be involved in collecting from an insurance company the proceeds of an endowment policy on which they have been paying premiums for years.”

Unemployment benefits are not a privilege or a luxury, they are a basic human right in Australia. Never let anyone convince you otherwise.

Back to Status Employment. Because I can’t do much and I am waiting for further medical tests, I chose to do a “Job club” once each week. These things are essentially pointless and a waste of time, especially for someone like me who is not really able to work.

I told the woman who interviewed me again that I am not at all happy about the way I am being treated and she just said that she doesn’t make the rules, she only follows them (and enforces them, which she didn’t say)
“Ah!”, I said, “The Nuremberg Defence! – we were just following orders!”
Needless to say, this remark was lost on her.

I left Status Employment wondering what sort of country I had woken up in and why the poor and unemployed are being treated like this? People are rightfully indignant about the way Australia shoves refugees onto islands in the Pacific, but what of the many thousands of Australian citizens who are being punished, threatened, inconvenienced, humiliated and simply having their lives ruined by harsh government policies?
I have contacted Mr. Mark Butler and had a very good conversation with his staff about these issues. I also contacted the office of Mr. Bill Shorten, the leader of the federal opposition and had a very productive conversation about my situation and the situation of thousands of my compatriots. And finally I had two very productive conversations with the good folks at the Australian Unemployed Workers Union, who actually took the time to inform me of what my rights actually are, as opposed to the woman who interviewed me at Status Employment, Port Adelaide, where she either didn’t know what are my rights or deliberately concealed them or simply tried to bamboozle me with paperwork and threats.

On the sound advice of the Australian Unemployed Workers Union, I have emailed Status Employment to get my Job Plan renegotiated in the light of my new knowledge of my rights. So far, I haven’t heard from them.

If any of you wish to contact me, my email address is smguy@optusnet.com.au and my mobile number is 0413354470. I am available around the clock.

Goodbye and good luck.

To APM,
Just to let you know I had Sue ####### from your ######## site as My Disability Job Provider. I was told your service would help me gain employment and support me in my new job. The one positive thing I could say she did for me was sent me to a seminar that was about a course United Care Wesley was offering to gain employment with them as a support worker.
I was sent to a disability employment provider for a mood disorder (anxiety and depression) and for a permanent spinal condition. On my first meeting with Sue, she had discussed with me my disability and what sort of things I could and could not do. I explained to her that I would need a job that I could do a combination of sitting and standing and a job that did not involved a lot of cleaning, heavy lifting or had constant repetitive movement was not suitable.
As much as Sue herself would like to claim the credit herself, I had to compete with approximately 100 other people for 14 places United Care Wesley had to offer. They had said at the seminar if we gained employment with them that we would be able to pick and choose the work we wanted to do, and also said that a big majority of the work they had to offer was for what they call domestic in which involves helping elderly people do jobs in their home such as cleaning so that they can remain in their home for as long as possible. So if we did not opt in for domestic we may not get the hours we wanted and domestic shifts were a god way to build up your working hours. My initial thought was I had nothing to loose although I can not do cleaning it was a good start to getting a job and that even though it may take some time to build up on the amount of clients I get once I had a little experience I could also apply for other support worker jobs at different agencies.
Well I got into course and gained employment with my hard work and effort I put in to getting into and completing course. Through doing course I found that I was interested in going on to do some more study in mental health and that would also be able to help increase my hours and employ ability.
From there everything went pear shaped no thanks to your Job Provider whose job is not only to help me gain suitable and sustainable employment but also to support me in my new job. On my initial starting day we were handed forms to fill out and one of those being what jobs we wanted, I ticked all the boxes except for domestic as I knew I would not be able to do due to amount of pain it would cause me due to my spinal condition. Up to around week 5 to 6 the jobs they offered me were all respite or social visits. After that I started to get domestic shifts In which I was told today I got rostered for domestic shifts because Sue had constantly been calling them and telling them to I had to have 23 hours a week. I was also aware of this as my supervisor Heather had mentioned Sue had called her and that she constantly gets harassed by these job providers. Talk about these so called employment agencies putting off potential employers from hiring anybody from a Job Provider, don’t they think employers have more important things to do than be harassed by job providers.
From there I had constantly complained to Sue that I was starting to get a lot of domestic shifts in which I was really starting to struggled with and causing me a lot of pain, and had also asked her on nearly every appointment she made with me if she could contact my employer and explain to them my condition and why I had not opted in for domestic shifts. Still to this day she did not contact them as I had asked and eventually all was becoming way to much for me and I had to do it myself even though I thought it would be much better coming from her.
On top of her not doing her job and making sure that I was not in employment that was not going to irritate my condition which is her obligation to me. I had her treat me when I was telling her something like I was a liar which happened constantly. She would always cut me off when talking and never let me finish what I was saying, was making me do way more of everything even though  every fortnight I had worked enough hours to have my mutual obligations halved and on some fortnights should have had none and whenever I tried approaching her on my mutual obligations she would say I was wrong and did not know what I was talking about, even though I have a current copy dated 12 September 2016 of the Mutual Obligations and job plan guideline which included people with a P.C.W (Partial Capacity to Work). One week I got the flu and she was demanding I had a doctor certificate in her office by 4pm that day. Often did not give me sufficient notice when making an appointment with me sending me a text message at 4.45pm informing me I had an appointment the following morning or making appointments with me and not even bother to call me to make sure it was a convenient time that I was not working. Making me apply for jobs I was unqualified for or unsuitable due to my condition. Every week was a constant battle with her and she would not let you express your rights or oblige by them.
On one particular week she called me on a Monday morning asking if I could go in there for job search I told her I was working that day and that with my work commitments that week and mum going into hospital for a major operation that it really was not a good week for me. I also explained that the operation Mum was having was major and very high risk and that the only surgeon that would even touch my Mum had told her there was a high chance she may not survive the surgery. I told her that I was working until 2pm Tuesday and after that would be going to be spending rest of afternoon with my Mum and that I was also working Wednesday but wanted to go to hospital after that and said I would be to anxious that day and I had full days work Thursday and Friday. Sue then insisted that I had not been there for last 3 weeks (in which I had she was one failing to record it) and not only did I have one appointment I had two and was insisting that I be there both on the Tuesday and Wednesday. What an uncompassionate bitch who also has the power to decide if my circumstances in not being able to attend are on reasonable grounds.

Then finally after every week of having to argue with her about my rights and her not sticking by her obligations to me, bullying me and the phone call she made last Tuesday to my work making a complete fool off me, causing me to break down crying in her office and a huge screaming match, I am now unemployed. She finally broke me down and caused my depression and anxiety to come back (that when going to her in only February this year was something after 3 years was nearly completely over) I was informed by my employer that Sue had told them that I was unsuited to mental health work and even if I was to do course would at this stage not consider me for (because phone call Sue had made) So had no choice but to resign as only work they could offer me now was domestic in which I can not do.
This was the totally unprofessional behavior In which I have had to deal with. She was suppose to be supporting me with and not causing me even more stress and anxiety. Who the hell is she to phone my employer after months of her breaking me down and treating me unfairly as well as denying me of my rights and not meeting her obligations to tell my employer I am unsuitable for mental health work when she cant even do her own job professionally and properly. What qualification and how much does this bitch know about me to be the judge on what I am and am not suited for and totally fuck up my job and bring me back into total depression.
I now have to find another Job Provider and the thought of that now makes me feel anxious as I have just been totally screwed over and worn down by an unfair system as well as a Disability Job Provider whom does not seem to care that her clients have a disability and not sensitive to their needs and seems only to care about the bonuses you get for when people meet their required hours who have a disability. I think it only fair to say she is TOTALLY UNSUITABLE to be a disability job provider. I now have depression and anxiety in which I struggled with for 3 years that I was almost completely over before being sent to her in February this year and what she has the nerve to say what I am suited for in which I believe is something I would have been good at.
On one last note when doing the course I met a woman called Sharon who also was doing the course and since become good friends, turns out that Sue was also her job provider until yesterday. Sharon rang me completely upset she also suffers depression and has rheumatoid arthritis, she said she had gone to see Sue that day to give her a doctor certificate and doctor had said she was unfit for work until I think Janurary 17th next year, Sue apparently said that she was still required to do job search and Sharon said we will leave that to centrelink to decide. Sue apparently threw the doctor certificate back at her and started laughing and said good luck with centrelink. This is not a joke and not the way to treat people who have an illness, injury or disability.
Will look forward to your response to my complaint and I hope that this completely insensitive bitch is dealt with accordingly