Page 2393 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 2 August 2017
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We must have a zero tolerance approach to workplace accidents. A crucial part of ensuring the safety of young workers is educating them on their workplace safety protections and their own responsibilities to work safely in the workplace. One of the core responsibilities of schools is to prepare our young people to enter the workforce. It makes sense for our education system to provide students with information about the obligations of employers to ensure their safety while at work, to ensure that young people both understand and are able to ask their employers to meet these obligations.
It is not uncommon for young people to commence paid employment while they are still completing their year 11 or 12 studies, and some perhaps even earlier. I note that there are increasing opportunities for students to take up vocational training or school-based apprenticeships while undertaking secondary education. Tragically, these opportunities, which provide important skills and training for young people, have not been without accident. Without going into the specifics, the idea that students could be severely injured while undertaking a school-based apprenticeship or while participating in the development of trade skills is unthinkable. Yet such accidents have happened and they underline the importance of training and educating both workers and employers or supervisors in safe workplace practices and procedures.
We expect that everyone who goes to work each day will return home safely. This is just as true for our young workers who may be working a few hours a week in casual employment as it is for all of us who, as adults, work full time, whether it be in an office or on a construction site. An additional and related issue is the matter of workplace rights and entitlements. While I acknowledge that this is a separate issue to that of workplace health and safety, it is equally important that we educate our young workers about the basic entitlements and expectations that they may have of their employers.
It is with depressing regularity that we hear of employers, including those here in the ACT, that have underpaid or withheld wages from young workers. In a time when employment for young people is becoming increasingly insecure and there is a growing take-it-or-leave-it approach to wage negotiation, it is crucial that governments provide the opportunities for young people to be educated about their workplace rights as well as ensuring that employers are compliant with the laws that are put in place to protect them.
We have seen some very high profile examples in the last year or so of major national chains that have HR departments or the like. They have been franchises in some cases, but we have seen significant examples of people being ripped off in the workplace, not being paid their entitlements, not being paid for their proper hours and these sorts of things. It is essential that people appreciate that they do have rights and how to stand up for them.
We often hear about young workers who have been intimidated and bullied in the workplace. Despite decades of work to try to achieve an equal footing between
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