Article: “Boomers vs Millennials: the gig economy breaks & enters the Australian Public Service”

Interesting article from Australia that illustrates that the Australian government has been instigating a gig economy in the public service for quite some time now.

One of the examples used is the AAT (Australian Appeals Tribunal) HOB already knows this as my partner was employed at the AAT last year and treated appallingly under the conditions  of both the contract but also the other public servants at the department who’s daily aim is Darwnian  job protection rather than actually doing any work at all,  whilst, as far as we could work out the department head appeared to take half the year off and then the spend the time in the office yelling at people.

Post COVID-19 this can only get worse the PM Morisson’s plans for the Australian public service which will now continue apace under the aegis of further cost cutting.

We presume the end game is make the public service so inefficient the work can then be hired out to US companies whose job in the main is to provide mercenary armies to destablize states. It’s a sad state of affairs indeed

 

Boomers vs Millennials: the gig economy breaks & enters the Australian Public Service

Michael West writes…

Casualisation of the workforce disproportionally affects younger generations. From Amazon’s big MEL1 sweatshop to even the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), the gig economic proliferates. Millennial lawyer Geordie Wilson reports that even the Australian Government is casualising its workforce at an astounding rate. In this, the first of our series Millennials vs Boomers, Wilson says illegal workplace practices appear to be rife even in the public service. It is something the Baby Boomers generation would hardly have even contemplated as, back in the day, they sought secure government jobs and the protection of the law. 

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One form of casual work, the labour-hire arrangement, is particularly troublesome. In a bizarre legal arrangement, companies are able to hire ‘services’ from another company called a ‘labour-hire provider’.

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A publicly available FOI request shows labour hire arrangements are prevalent in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), the government body which handles FOI requests, migration and refugees, NDIS and social services decisions amongst others. Ironically, the AAT – despite it being responsible for Freedom of Information, is secretive about its own arrangements.

The AAT has engaged “approximately 551 individuals” through labour-hire arrangements, since 2016. It is unclear how many of them still work there, but when one considers that the AAT employs a total of 742 employees, it seems likely that a significant chunk of the AAT’s work is conducted through labour-hire.

The Government is also deploying labour hire to replace senior public servants as well as fill junior clerical positions.

Publicly visible listings on the website of major labour-hire providers show that relatively senior positions are also being procured through recruitment firms that frequently engage employees on a labour-hire arrangement. Hays, for example, has publicly available listings at the time of writing that include classification levels such as ‘APS6’ (middle-management level), and ‘EL1’ (an executive-level classification). Even executive-level ministerial positions are being procured through these firms. 

Read the full article at

Boomers vs Millennials: the gig economy breaks & enters the Australian Public Service