Hospitality and retail workers in Ballarat and beyond have been given a new tool to help them find employers who abide by workplace laws and regulations.
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The ‘rate my boss’ website was launched last week by United Voice, the union that represents workers in industries such as hospitality, retail and the community sector.
The website allows workers to anonymously rate their employees on a number of aspects including payment of wages and entitlements, working conditions and overall satisfaction.
There have been a number of Ballarat businesses reviewed on the site already with workers calling out employers who have ripped off their staff.
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Secretary of the Ballarat Trades and Labour Council, Brett Edgington said many young workers in Ballarat are treated poorly by their empolyers in these industries.
“Overwhelmingly, the people coming through the young workers legal centre here in Ballarat are coming from retail and hospitality and they are reporting things like wage theft and bullying and harassment,” he said.
“There is a massive problem of non-compliance in the sector and for many years, United Voice have been trying to figure out how to get hospitality staff justice.
“United Voice are claiming up to 75 per cent of people they speak to are reporting illegal payments, wage theft, non payment of superannuation, non payment of penalty rates and other entitlements, and more.”
According to Mr Edgington, the website allows workers to take control and have a platform to voice their frustrations.
“Hospitality and retail are particularly difficult to organise into so creating a forum where workers can speak out is really important,” he said.
“This is about providing them with a tool they can use to create a voice for themselves.”
“Hopefully it will get to a point where businesses owners will start paying attention and start to change practices and attitudes.”
The activity we are talking about is breaking the law; it's illegal activity
- Brett Edgington, Ballarat Trades and Labour Council
As well as providing a forum for people employed in the hospitality and retail industries, the website will allow prospective employees and customers to choose to give labour or patronage to businesses who comply with the law.
“There is a plus for employers as well,” Mr Edgington said.
“In hospitality in particular, quality of staff makes a huge difference to and when venues are looking for people to employ, four or five star rated businesses can attract quality workers and will retain staff.”
United Voice will check and verify each entry to the website before it is posted to ensure only legitimate entries are made to the database.
Mr Edgington is hoping the website is successful so it can be rolled out to other industries as well.
“If this goes will we can look at getting it into other sectors such as hair and beauty as well as construction and domestic building,” he said.