Young Workers Hub launches in Queensland to educate and support young workers
The Queensland Council of Unions has today launched an education, support and campaigning organisation for young workers.
Queensland Council of Unions General Secretary Ros McLennan said it was important to connect young people who may be having similar experiences at work and that young people know the role unions play in our workplaces.
The Young Workers Hub has three arms:
- An education outreach program to ensure senior students know their rights at work. The Hub is currently preparing for a pilot program.
- Contact channels for young people to seek support on work-related questions around pay, shifts, ABNs, internships, bullying, discrimination and more.
- Campaigning arm for young people to make their workplaces better.
Ms McLennan said the Hub would provide industrial advice and refer young people to such bodies as the Fair Work Ombudsman, unions and lawyers.
“The Hub will ensure that young workers are guided and supported through their introduction into the world of work, its challenges and rewards,” she said.
Young Workers Hub co-founder, Martin de Rooy, aged 22, said: “We are a generation who have only known a world of insecure work and our arrangements are often much more complex than those our parents experienced. This and a lack of secondary education on our rights at work is the gap the Young Workers Hub will fill.”
A recent audit by the Fair Work Ombudsman found 60 per cent of businesses in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley were not compliant, with a majority of contraventions related to wages. The Hub is currently preparing its submissions to the parliamentary inquiry into wage theft and is collecting case studies at www.ywhub.org.au.
Ms McLennan said the vision for the Hub is workplaces where no young worker experiences wage theft, bullying, sexual harassment, unpaid superannuation or loneliness.
