I need to be very careful about out I write this post; because things that I mention here, might form part of a class-action and maybe a series of prosecutions. Provided that I remain vague about the circumstances and do not mention actual companies by name, I think that I should be at liberty to write this post.
Particularly over the last decade, since Tony Abbott became Prime Minister, Australia has been progressively culturally morphing closer and closer to being like the United States. As such, we should expect to see magic words like 'abortion' and 'woke' being waved about, to make people vote for things which actively attack their own interests. Beginning with Abbott especially, the employment of the three-word slogan and the deliberate tactic of making people not think, has been the gameplan of right-wing trashmedia and the consolidation of media assets and the white-anting of the ABC, has only made things worse. It was worked excellently.
One favourite strategies of right-wing trashmedia in this country has yet again been that demonising immigrants is fair game. Australia as an invader settler colony, not long after federation, explicitly passed racist legislation to keep out anyone other than white people. A suspicion of brown people was kept more or less intact until the late 1960s, and then when actual humanitarian crises started to happen as a result of the wars which we were only too happy to fight (after having switched foreign policy providers from Britain to the United States) it was only then that people who looked markedly different from the generic white people that were here, started to arrive.
The propaganda from the right-wing trashmedia likes to blame immigration for rising rents and lower home ownership rates, in spite of the fact that real wages have been falling since 1978, and that tax policy was changed specifically to benefit what is fast becoming a new landed gentry. We have amazingly generous provision in taxation legislation, designed to reward the accumulation of capital; particularly when in the matters of the 50% GST Discounting Rate and other helpful tactics like Negative Gearing, Trust Tax provisions, and Franking Credits. Yet the right-wing trashmedia, which doesn't need to rely on facts or the long story to convince its consumers of what they want to tell them, has no problem in blaming people who might have arrived yesterday, for 40 years of tax policy. At the same time, the right-wing trashmedia likes to accuse unions for keeping wages too high; even though wages have been sliding in real terms for more than 40 years.
In response to wages which companies think is still too high, when they would prefer to pay people literally nothing, we have seen the emergence of ghost colleges who hold out worthless qualifications in return for fees, and what we are beginning to see with so-called "black companies".
Perhaps you may have heard of a "dark supermarket" or a "dark store". These places generally have an online shopfront, and then a large warehouse which exists to fulfill orders, without needing to have any kind of physical customer interaction. After an order has been filled, the order is then put on a small truck and delivered directly to the customer's door. While there is a small need to hire staff to pick and fill the orders, the land, labour, and capital, needed to operate a physical store out in 'the real world', no longer exists. Some customers actively like the idea of having their things delivered to them as it means that they do not have to interact with staff or leave the house.
A black company is one step even better. A black company might operate a dark supermarket, or a dark store, or a call centre, or a data entry company, or other such business which also does not need to have any kind of physical customer interaction but then maximises profits even further, because without public scrutiny, it can find even more profits by underpaying wages, stealing wages; all without any kind of watching eye from the public, and because the people who work there are often hired under the guise of studying at a ghost college, or other kind of immigration/visa scheme, teh consumers of right-wing trashmedia are already on the side of the companies who employ these people and best of all, actively hate them.
Without any oversight, a black company is perfectly at liberty to hire a large number of young employees and then force them to work large amounts of overtime without overtime pay. A black company is also perfectly at liberty to scrimp on things like air-conditioning and ventilation because not only is there no oversight but recent immigrants are highly unlikely to be members of a union either.
In addition to conditions which would be unacceptable out in 'the real world', I have now seen reports of bullying and harassment, both physical and sexual in nations, of workers by their superiors. In addition to this, there have also been reports of superiors threatening young employees with disrepute and refusal to write or provide any kind of reference if they indicate they might quit. As these young employees' visa and immigration is contingent on them having a job in many cases, the threat of being fired and/or not having a reference, or a loss of reputation even though that is in all likelihood materially untrue, is very very scary.
One particular company which operates a dark supermarket, currently has the issue that its warehouse workers have found out that they have been underpaid, and as they are not union members, they feel that the have very little power to actually do anything about it. This has resulted in strikes; which the company is quite prepared to wear because even $50 million in lost sales is apparently an acceptable price to pay while it starves out its striking warehouse workers. They are ultimately replaceable and as none of them are ever likely to take up any kind of formal industrial action through the courts, then the wages that this company doesn't have to pay while they are on strike, is kind of a wash in comparison to the lost sales. This is quite apart from the fact that the surveillance and conditions these workers endure is completely beyond the pale.
Meanwhile prices have risen in real terms and well beyond the rate of inflation; thanks to a combination of sneaky predatory practices and possible collusion within the market and former Prime Minister Tony Abbott's political party, rather than blaming the company for their action, has taken to blaming the federal government for a rise in grocery prices. The right-wing trashmedia love this, because they get yet another reason to continue demonising immigrants. Out of sight does not equal out of mind but it does mean that you can dehumanise someone for fun and profit; particularly if you a corporate psychopathic cussjack.
The sad thing is that as the economy moves to being more online and less about having shopfronts in the real world, big corporations under cover of dark stores can operate black companies with even less scrutiny than they used to in the past. A business which operates a store front has to cover things like rent, electricity and post wages but a black company which can consolidate its floorspace, can pay less and actively skimp on workers' conditions in complete impunity. Black companies even more than faceless corporations act as if they have no responsibility to either the nation or the people therein because it turns out that both democracy and decency die in darkness.
No comments:
Post a Comment