Having worked as a Station Hand on a Sheep/wheat property at Culcairn in New South Wales under the Federal Pastoral Award system of conditions and payment I thought, as my nineteenth birthday was coming up, I should look into my current terms of employment.
I asked my employer if I could have a look at a copy of the current award and conditions. Hours of work were a forty four hour week, 7.30 am to 5.30 pm Monday to Friday plus four hours on Saturday morning, a total of a 44-hour week. Payment was £8 per week minus £4 for food & lodgings (I lived in a sectioned part of the veranda), less tax of £1, a total of £4 take home pay.
I asked if I could be paid the Award for a 19-year old which was an increase in money. “Sure I’ll pay you under the award” he said. Little did I know that I had to provide my own bedding, ie. blankets, sheets, towels, for up to this moment my employer had been paying me under the award and “lending me the blankets”.
On arriving at my sectioned off part of the verandah that night I couldn’t help but see the blankets had been confiscated – obviously stored away in the homestead. I asked for the blankets and was told I would have to arrange to phone my father in Melbourne to ask if he would send up a set of blankets, sheets, towels etc on the next available goods train. In those days this took some time.
My birth date is in late April, so I had to sleep in my work clothes from mid to late April. April in Culcairn is one of the coldest months in the year, especially when sleeping on a verandah without any bed clothes.
I thought this was about the lowest act my employer could do. Surely he could have given me some warning that the blanket offer had been withdrawn.
My experience in later years in employing people is to ensure all employees are aware of their rights and responsibilities and do not have to face returning home on a freezing night to a bed without any blankets.
That is why, wherever I worked, I made sure I was a union member.
Godfrey Marple
September 2016
I asked my employer if I could have a look at a copy of the current award and conditions. Hours of work were a forty four hour week, 7.30 am to 5.30 pm Monday to Friday plus four hours on Saturday morning, a total of a 44-hour week. Payment was £8 per week minus £4 for food & lodgings (I lived in a sectioned part of the veranda), less tax of £1, a total of £4 take home pay.
I asked if I could be paid the Award for a 19-year old which was an increase in money. “Sure I’ll pay you under the award” he said. Little did I know that I had to provide my own bedding, ie. blankets, sheets, towels, for up to this moment my employer had been paying me under the award and “lending me the blankets”.
On arriving at my sectioned off part of the verandah that night I couldn’t help but see the blankets had been confiscated – obviously stored away in the homestead. I asked for the blankets and was told I would have to arrange to phone my father in Melbourne to ask if he would send up a set of blankets, sheets, towels etc on the next available goods train. In those days this took some time.
My birth date is in late April, so I had to sleep in my work clothes from mid to late April. April in Culcairn is one of the coldest months in the year, especially when sleeping on a verandah without any bed clothes.
I thought this was about the lowest act my employer could do. Surely he could have given me some warning that the blanket offer had been withdrawn.
My experience in later years in employing people is to ensure all employees are aware of their rights and responsibilities and do not have to face returning home on a freezing night to a bed without any blankets.
That is why, wherever I worked, I made sure I was a union member.
Godfrey Marple
September 2016
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