ONCALL thought it was ok to slash your pay to win a contract…they were wrong!

Translators and Interpreters already face adverse pay and conditions because of privatisation and casualisation. ONCALL now expects Centrelink Sessional Interpreters to work, in some cases, for less than what they were earning for the same work only months ago.

TIA recognises that this is yet a further symptom of the underlying problem that impacts the working arrangements of translators and interpreters. This problem is the lack of legal protection for translators and interpreters.

In June 2022, TIA wrote to ONCALL asking for the commencement of negotiations for an Enterprise Agreement that would establish transparent and legally enforceable minimum rates of pay and employment conditions that could not be cut when ONCALL bids for new contracts.

ONCALL officially declined to bargain with TIA.

But that’s not the end of it.

IT’S TIME FOR TRANSLATORS AND INTERPRETERS TO STAND UP AND FIGHT BACK!

Currently, everyone who works at ONCALL is covered by an individual employment contract. Even if you haven’t signed a contract, when you accept work from ONCALL you accept their terms. These individual contracts are one of the reasons that when we complain about ONCALL’s pay cuts, they can just say “take it or leave it”.

The way we can address the issue of this power imbalance is with an Enterprise Agreement. This is an agreement on your pay and conditions at work, which could apply for all T&Is working for ONCALL. For union members, an Enterprise Agreement is negotiated by the Union - this way it’s not just one person asking for fair pay and conditions, it’s all of us demanding it together, which is far more powerful!

So, how do we make it happen?

The good news is that, even though ONCALL has declined to bargain, they can still be forced by the Fair Work Commission to negotiate with you. For the Fair Work Commission to be able to make ONCALL bargain with us, we must get a Majority Support Determination. To make this happen, we need a majority of employees at ONCALL to sign a petition confirming that they want negotiate for Enterprise Agreement.

If enough translators and interpreters sign this petition, TIA will seek an Order from the Fair Work Commission that would lawfully compel ONCALL to bargain with us.

So, what are you waiting for? Sign the petition by clicking the button below and share this information with all your T&I colleagues. Anyone who you know that is employed by ONCALL should sign the petition. It’s the only way we can bring them to the negotiating table and address many of the systemic issues facing T&Is at ONCALL right now.

Sign the MSD Petition

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As T&Is our work is often solitary, but as union members, we are never alone.