Disabled Workers Axed From Call Centre

Illawarra Mercury

Thursday October 23, 2008

By ANGELA THOMPSON

AN entire staff of disabled workers will be sacked from an Illawarra call centre, less than three months after winning a wages dispute with the employer.

The Wollongong Radio Doctor call centre's 14 physically disabled employees will be made redundant from November 9 following a decision by the service's board to outsource their jobs.

The decision follows an agreement made by the service in August to fix an award discrepancy that had shortchanged staff $3 an hour throughout their employment.

Yesterday, service general manager Michael Feltham said the new wage arrangements would financially cripple the service, adding $50,000 to an existing budget deficit.

But the United Services Union said the board had refused to save the jobs by increasing the GP fees that pay for the service and cutting back on expenses, including $40,000 worth of advertising and $5000 in Christmas bonuses.

"Doctors pay $150 a month and the fee hasn't increased in 11 years," the union's southern organiser, Rudi Oppitz, said.

"Doctors earn on average $300,000 a year and we believe a small (increase) in their contribution would allow the call centre to continue."

Among those facing the sack is 20-year-old Nicole Holmes, who is completely blind. Miss Holmes vowed to fight the decision, which she described as "pretty low".

"We have been greatly exploited. The main objective of the company in employing us was to give people with a disability a fair go and they're contradicting that by making us redundant," she said.

"Most of my peers have jobs so it was making me equal in society and that's all that we're after really."

Many of those working at the centre used their wages to supplement the modest disability pension or insurance payouts that otherwise made up their entire income.

Employee Vicki Vidler said colleagues had been able to pay for their first holiday in 20 or 30 years with wages from the call centre.

"It's not a great deal of money that we make but ... it just sort of lifts you off the poverty line," she said.

Ms Vidler called on people using the service to voice their support to area general practitioners.

She hoped doctors would recognise their plight and consider increased contributions, which were tax deductible.

"I'm hoping they would see it as a community service keeping 14 disabled people in the Illawarra employed and leaving it open for other people as time goes on," she said.

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