Episode 96: Making the job summit work for workers, Bosses bumper bonuses, COVID update and good news about sand

Van Badham and Ben Davison look at the Albanese Government's announcement of a jobs and skills summit, who might be going, who thinks they are going, what it is supposed to achieve and why the Liberal Party is totally confused about what is happening.

Australian Unions are positioning to have the summit fix our broken workplace laws, improve wages, job security, working conditions for women and access for all.  To be part of the movement, like Steve (listen and you'll understand), go to australianunions.org.au/wow

Ben and Van examine a couple of case studies of how broken the workplace laws are when business can be crying out for more workers yet companies are cancelling staff agreements and cutting wages. The workers at Tuftmaster are being threatened with the loss of job security and a cancelled agreement while Ben spoke with MUA Sydney Deputy Branch Secretary Paul Garrett about the attempts by massive multinational Maersk to almost HALVE the wages of tug boat crews in Australia through their subsidiary company Svitzer by cancelling their agreement. 

All of this is happening against a backdrop of record profits, record CEO pay and increasing productivity but declining wages.

Van and Ben discuss some of the egregious cases like Qantas, Afterpay and CSL where government funding, subsidies, unlawful conduct or total lack of profitability hasn't stopped the executives from taking MASSIVE pay days.

COVID is getting worse.  Van and Ben run through some figures but also their own experience of COVID and why wearing masks, supporting people having to isolate and getting vaccinated is so important.

The good news is sand powered batteries in Finland!

We also congratulate our Cadre and Extend the Reach supporters who have helped us get to more than 500,000 downloads! You can become a supporter at www.buymeacoffee.com/WeekonWednesday