HOWARD'S WORKCHOICES

HURTS WORKERS LIKE THIS

FFTS member Danielle Schumacher and her friends were thrown out on the scrap heap after 20 years loyal service.

Hiding behind WorkChoices her former boss offered them no redundancy and no termination pay. She showed great courage and addressed 35,000 other workers at an anti-WorkChoices rally on the 26 September 2007 and told her story:

'I come today to send a message to John Howard...and I hope he is listening to what I have to say. I know this is not going to happen just once with us. I know that it is going to happen again and again. It happened a while ago - 15 minutes before finishing work my employer called us. About nine of us. They called us and all they had to say was; 'we don't need your service anymore'. And nothing was given to us. No redundancy - no termination pay - we felt totally hopeless because seven of my friends were Fillipino so we didn't understand anything. We were not aware of John Howard's laws and that there was now no redundancy. So we were totally devastated. We didn?t know where to go or how to speak out. Luckily we were with the union. We called the union and asked for help. And yeah they came to help us.

But we had to go into six lots of court hearings before we could get our redundancy. So I am saying this whole thing is wrong about John Howard. So I am hoping what we are doing right now can make a difference. Thank you.'