Late last year, the company introduced a new framework to enforce an efficiency rate for picking of 100%. Workers who werenât meeting the standard would be put into a coaching program. Some were directed to âstop all time wasting and non-productive behaviorsâ, according to warning letters seen by Guardian Australia. Failure to improve could lead to disciplinary action and even loss of employment. One worker described it as a âbullyingâ tactic.
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A spokesperson for Primary Connect, Woolworthsâ supply chain arm, said its coaching framework helped âto ensure a fair approach to the standards is applied to any personal circumstances or abilitiesâ.
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But Guardian Australia spoke to a dozen current and former workers for Woolworths and Primary Connect, who claim the standards are unfair and putting their safety at risk. All requested anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.
As more people shop online, thereâs been growing attention to the treatment and tracking of workers in warehouses run by e-commerce conglomerates like Amazon. In June, the state of California fined the company for failing to properly disclose its productivity targets to workers â a decision the company is reportedly appealing. But Australian warehouse workers have long been subject to this style of control. Engineered standards were introduced by Australian supermarket chains in the late 1980s and 1990s and were the target of industrial action.
âItâs a fantasy of total efficiency,â Christopher OâNeill, a research fellow at Deakin University who studies workplace automation, said of engineered standards. âThe argument was: this was a âscientificâ way of rationalising work and eliminating wasted time,â he said.
âItâs basically a pseudoscientific veneer over this kind of fantasy of being able to control every second of every day.â
Linkage
Things Katy is reading.
âStop all time wastingâ: Woolworths workers tracked and timed under new efficiency crackdown
in The GuardianAustralian Christian Lobby spread transphobia in election letter drop
in Q NewsThe Australian Christian Lobby has sent an election mail out in Victoria, spreading transphobia and trying to discredit The Greens.
Residents of the City of Yarra and Moreland City Councils contacted QNews after they received transphobic election material.
It arrived in their letterbox the day after Trans Day of Visibility.
The pamphlet from the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) was titled: âMale and Female Matterâ.
It states that the Greens are âexperimenting with biology at your expenseâ.
âMale and female matter, The Greens donât agree,â the pamphlet read.
Siting that âwhile you wait for urgent medical care, The Greens want to use your tax dollars for free gender transition surgeriesâ.
The pamphlet also says that the Greens wish to put more gender clinics in hospitals while emergency departments are in crisis.
Australia's "conservative" coalition parties commit to Christian Nationalism
The Republican Party thought it could ride the tiger of the Christian Right: instead, that movement swallowed the party whole. There a presidential candidateâs victory could depend on their success at gaining the Christian Right leadersâ endorsement. The news released on Sunday that Coalition candidates submitted a Christian principles statement to the Australian Christian Lobbyâs (ACL) voter advice site signals they are making the same dangerous gamble.
The ACL is not lobbying for the traditional Australian definition of Christian, which leans more to the âlive and let liveâ. Rather, this is an organisation committed to coercive, American style Christianity. It has been listed as a âhate groupâ. Rumours in Pentecostal circles that the ACL is encouraging its leaders to undertake training from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a radical right American organisation that has argued for the âstate-sanctioned sterilisation of trans peopleâ need to be addressed. That body also works towards the (re)criminalising of homosexuality and stripping of access to reproductive healthcare. The ACL and the ADFwere both at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London in February, with the ADFâs Kristen Waggoner listed as a speaker. Many Coalition politicians are on the ARCâs advisory board and attended that conference.
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The statement concludes with a transphobic commitment to the âbiological factâ that there are only two sexes. The Coalitionâs statement deviates from the extreme position represented in Trumpâs second government only by allowing that intersex biology exists. This grade school understanding of human biology, let alone psychology, is reductive and wrong. It also flags the continued misuse of trans people as the first targeted outsider in an ugly politics that prioritises the insider identity against a chosen mutual enemy.
Because of course it does.
Mark Carneyâs first 100 days a blitz of pro-corporate, Trump-friendly moves
for YouTubeCarney has seized on Trumpâs tariff crisis to push through a pro-corporate agenda that attacks Indigenous peoples, workers, and the environment. Now, itâs up to social movements to respond as quickly.
City of Melbourne Housing Monitor
for City of Melbourne (CoM) , .id (informed decisions)Some nice infographics based largely on census data, provided as a turnkey service for local government.
2025: Rental Affordability Snapshot
for Anglicare AustraliaThe 2025 Rental Affordability Snapshot surveyed rental listings across Australia and found that affordability has crashed to record lows. The Snapshot surveyed 51,238 rental listings across Australia and found that:
352 rentals (0.7%) were affordable for a person earning a full-time minimum wage
165 rentals (0.3%) were affordable for a person on the Age Pension
28 rentals (0.1%) were affordable for a person on the Disability Support Pension
3 rentals (0%), all rooms in sharehouses, were affordable for a person on JobSeeker
No rentals were affordable for a person on Youth Allowance.In response to the findings, Anglicare Australia is calling on the Government to return to directly funding and providing housing itself, instead of leaving housing to the private sector. Anglicare Australia is also calling on the Government to wind back landlord tax concessions.
Budget standards: a new healthy living minimum income standard for low-paid and unemployed Australians
for UNSW SydneyThis project built on previous Australian and recent international research to develop a set of budget standards for low-paid and unemployed Australians and their families.
The family types included are:
- a single person (male and female)
- couples without children
- couples with one and two children
- a sole parent with one child.
The approach incorporated existing community norms, expert judgments and relevant evidence from social surveys. It emphasised the views expressed by low-paid and unemployed individuals in focus groups to ensure that the standards are grounded in everyday experience and reflect actual needs.
The results were also used to inform debate and guide decisions about the adequacy of minimum wages and income support payments for the unemployed required to support healthy living consistent with individual needs, family needs and prevailing community standards.
Rental Affordability Index
for SGS Economics & PlanningOoh. This is really nice.
The annual rental affordability index (RAI) report is an easy-to-understand indicator of rental affordability relative to household incomes. Since its establishment in 2015, it has become a crucial tool for policymakers. It helps track rental affordability trends and informs evidence-based policy decisions â highlighting nuances between places and the experiences of disadvantaged households. To produce the Index each year, we work closely with our partners: National Shelter and Beyond Bank.
Research shows social housing struggling to keep up with increasing demand
in ABC NewsPissweak:
The study authors said the effects of decades of underinvestment in the social housing sector were gradually being reversed as state and federal governments looked to ease the housing crisis.
Dr Martin said the renewed focus on the sector posed an opportunity to deliver housing support differently.
âIt may not always be about the golden ticket of a social housing tenancy, even though thatâs what a lot of people will rightly want and need,â he said.
His examples included additional assistance to very low-income households in the private market and a bigger focus on individual housing needs.
Queensland recently reported an average wait time of about 21 months for high-needs households moving into government-owned social housing.
In Victoria, priority households face a wait of about 18 months. The wait for a two-bedroom property in inner-city Sydney is 10 years or more.
âWe do need a more person-centred approach,â Ms Toohey said.
âWe can integrate choice-based letting where people can search for their own social housing properties, or have a system whereby we check in on people on the list and see if thereâs any other housing assistance you can provide.â
Growing Social Housing: Data, insights and targets
for Victorian Housing Peaks AllianceThis report provides data and insights about social housing need across Victoria and models social housing growth targets required to meet expressed demand and total demand. These growth targets are based on a set of housing scenarios, policy scenarios and distribution scenarios. The method is detailed in the body of this report.
All data, insights and analysis, and modelling in this report has been produced by SGS Economics and Planning for the Victorian Housing Peaks Alliance.