Prominent Ballarat businesses will be outed for underpaying workers and bullying behaviour at a Senate Inquiry into worker exploitation due to sit in Ballarat in mid-March. One business to be named at the inquiry next month has been taken to Federal Court by several staff for underpayment only to reach a confidential agreement each time, Ballarat Trades Hall secretary Brett Edgington said. According to Mr Edgington, one of the worst offenders is a Ballarat business which employs between 60 and 90 staff across several venues, and pays more than half its employees “off the book”. One private residential aged care facility reported to Trades Hall pays staff a flat overnight rate of $100 for shifts as long as 12 hours, often overseeing high risk patients.
February 13, 2017
Sigma Company Limited is facing a s.304 (Application for unfair dismissal remedy) lodged by an ex-staff member (Mitchell) in Darwin.
February 13, 2017
The prosecution over the death of a worker on the new Royal Adelaide Hospital will not go to trial after the State Government dropped all charges against the hospital’s builder. The state’s construction union was this afternoon informed through the Attorney General’s department that SafeWork SA had dropped its prosecution against HYLC and sub-contractor SRG Building over the death of Jorge Castillo Riffo in November 2014. Mr Riffo was working on a scissor lift at the site when he was crushed against concrete. The prosecution against HYLC and sub-contractor SRG Building for alleged workplace safety breaches was set down for a 10-day trial from today.
February 13, 2017
A s.210 (Enterprise agreement) variation application by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation for the Toosey Ltd Enterprise Agreement 2015 has been agreed by Senior Deputy President Hamberger in Sydney on the 9 February 2017.
February 10, 2017
A de facto carer who instructed two intellectually disabled people to participate in sex acts while he filmed them has been jailed for at least two-and-a-half years. The 55-year-old-man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was found guilty of two counts of rape and two counts of indecent filming, and pleaded guilty to threatening another carer who found out about the abuse. South Australia’s District Court heard the man had been a de facto carer to a young intellectually disabled woman.
February 10, 2017
As South Australian nurses call for the right to refuse treatment to aggressive patients, the State Government has unveiled a new social media campaign aimed at curbing violence in hospital emergency departments. The campaign comprises a 30-second video which dramatises the type of hostile encounter routinely experienced by hospital staff. Health workers are dealing with violence on a daily basis, including being threatened with infected blood and having drink cans thrown at them, according to the Nursing and Midwifery Federation. Government statistics show the number of code black incidents, where the safety of hospital staff is threatened, is rising. So far in 2016–17 there have been 6,245 code blacks, compared to 4,765 at the same time in 2015–16. That increase is partly due to rising levels of substance abuse, including the drug ice, Health Minister Jack Snelling said. But it also reflects a greater propensity by staff to declare code black.
February 10, 2017
A sharp inhale of breath from those gathered in the public gallery of the Newcastle Supreme Court on Thursday. Then cheering and applause. And finally, tears. So many tears. Moments earlier Graham Anthony George Sloane, 68, had been found guilty of murder over the stabbing death of Windale aged-care worker Renee Mitchell.
February 10, 2017
Oamaru Hospital director of nursing and community services Colleen Moore is going to retire next week.
