AUWU Calls For Safe Alternatives To Face-To-Face Appointments
Unwaged, underemployed and insecure workers must not be forced to risk infection while Omicron runs rampant.
The Australian Unemployed Workers' Union is advising welfare recipients to demand safe alternatives to face-to-face 'obligations' from their job agencies. This week, we’ve seen the ACTU inform workers of their rights to cease unsafe work — this must extend to unemployed workers trapped in the welfare system
Today, our advocacy team has released a guide to help job seekers negotiate over-the-phone appointments with their Employment Service Providers. We continue to receive reports from welfare recipients being forced out of their homes to perform pointless "mutual obligations" that risk community transmission. This must stop.
It is utterly disgraceful that Minister Robert has refused calls to issue a blanket suspension of mutual obligations -- he did this during the first and second waves, but like most of his colleagues, he has gone missing during Omicron.
We are demanding the Morrison government immediately suspend mutual obligations indefinitely. In addition, we demand the Morrison government reinstate the Coronavirus supplement for all welfare recipients unconditionally and indefinitely.
Unwaged, underemployed and insecure workers must not be forced to expose themselves to risk of infection in order to engage with job agencies while Omicron runs rampant.
In the current absence of any meaningful help from the Morrison government, we are providing the information below for advice on keeping yourself safe from COVID-19 while the government forces you to engage with the poverty machine.
Demanding Safe Alternatives To Face to Face Appointments
If your provider is asking you to attend a face to face appointment, you can decline to do so if going would pose a risk to your health through potential exposure to COVID-19 - particularly if you are a person with a disability, are a person who cares for someone with a disability, or you have other risk factors.
If you refuse to attend, your provider may try to give you a demerit point under the Targeted Compliance Framework. Providers are not meant to give demerit points if you have a reasonable excuse for not attending and you let them know about it ahead of time.
To lower your chances of getting a demerit point for refusing to attend, you can call your provider ahead of time and let them know the reason you are refusing to attend. You may find the below script helpful. It refers to the rules providers have to follow when making these decisions.
If the provider imposes a demerit point on you anyway, get in touch with us by emailing advocacy@auwu.org.au (please note that we are not a legal service and are limited to providing general advocacy advice, but we can point you to other specialist organisations and services).
What to say or write:
I'm calling/emailing to let you know I will not be attending my appointment on [date] unless it is changed to an online or phone appointment. Attending this appointment in person will expose me to the risk of COVID infection which is particularly dangerous to me due to [choose one that applies:]
disability
caring for a person with a disability
being immunocompromised
living with someone who is immunocompromised
being a person on low income (and therefore 4 times more likely to die from a COVID-19 infection, as reported by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare)
Under the Social Security Guide section 3.11.15, you cannot impose a demerit point on me for not attending a face to face appointment without using reasonable excuse principles. An excuse is one that an ordinary member of the community would accept as reasonable in the circumstances. Workplaces that do not require physical labour are now mostly work from home, and the ACT Chief Medical Officer last week encouraged people to work from home where they could. Because the appointment has in the past been conducted over the phone, it is reasonable to ask that we continue to do so in order to protect [my health/the health of people I care for/live with].
Under the reasonable excuse principles, you must consider my [risk factors] because these affect my ability to comply with the demand that I attend a face to face appointment and expose myself to the risk of COVID which could be seriously detrimental to my health.
I will not be attending this appointment until I am able to do so in a way that is safe and it is not within your powers to impose a demerit for this, as I have a reasonable excuse which I am alerting you to ahead of time.
Having laid out the principle you must abide by, if you insist that I am still required to attend a face-to-face appointment, I will report you to the Department of Education, Skills and Employment as well as to relevant MPs.
Media contact: media at auwu.org.au
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