Crikey

With regard to the “Workplace Authority MILKING THE COW” tip off, here is the email:

From: CASSON, Geoffrey

Sent: Wednesday, 20 February 2008 15:53

To: WPA - City - Sydney

Subject: Provision of Milk All

As all of you would all know the Government is looking to all its departments and agencies to exercise spending restraint in the current environment. In the past the Workplace Authority has provided in its offices milk for the making of tea and coffee. I understand that there may also have been some tea and coffee provided as well. Taken globally the provision of this facility comes at a surprisingly large cost. To contribute to the financial constraint that needs to be demonstrated by the agency the provision of milk (and tea and coffee) will be discontinued as from Monday 25 February. All staff in the Sydney office will need to make their own arrangements for the provision of milk from that time. Similar arrangements will prevail in other States.

Geoffrey Casson Regional Manager New South Wales Workplace Authority

Please see the Wikipedia entry for law firm Blake Dawson. Note especially the first paragraph! Then check the ‘history’ tab where you can see who has edited stuff — you can basically see a pitched battle between “Bdmsjaaf” (presumably disgruntled employee) and some other user/s (probably Blakes staff/IT)

Blakes has never been known for caring about its employees as the wiki entry shows:

Blake Dawson is a commercial law firm that operates in the Asia-Pacific region. In Australia it is considered one of the top commercial law firms. The partnership of Blake Dawson, the sixth-biggest law firm by revenue in 2008, is considering cutting up to 100 staff in a bid to slash costs and preserve profit. Blake Dawson is the first top tier law firm in Australia to announce anticipated redundancies during the 2009 economic downturn. While other major law firms Allens Arthur Robinson and Freehills have assured staff that there will be no redundancies, partners of Blake Dawson announced on 24 February 2008 that they would sack up to 100 staff instead of reducing their individual profit share. The firm’s partners receive an average of $850,000 each per annum.

You weren’t wrong when you said the cull was beginning at Blakes. I’ve just spent two hours on the phone to a friend in Melbourne who was let go yesterday. But apparently things are far worse than they’ve have admitted to — my friend says the final number is likely to end up being closer to 200. Apparently the partners think they can run the whole shop.

First the efficiency dividend, now no annual pay increase? Centrelink executives have just been told that the Minister (Joe Ludwig) has refused to sign off on staff’s annual pay increase due in July. The Minister has reportedly decided that they have failed to meet their required performance indicators and therefore are not entitled to the 4%. On top of this, this is the first year since the end of AWAs — which means they won’t receive their individual performance bonuses either.

It never occurred to anyone to check? Sure, accidents do occur from time to time. They even occur in newspapers. But when the boss issues a warning to staff to clean up their copy — like all moral warnings — you’d better make sure you’re on safe ground.

So it was at Brisbane’s Courier-Mail yesterday when editorial staff were each issued with name addressed A5 envelope containing a two-page single-side printed letter from the editor David Fagan. (No News Ltd 1 Degree save-the-planet award in the running there for not double-side printing the letter on a single sheet of paper.)

Contained with the letter was a double-side colour printed sheet listing all the dos and don’ts for editorial staff from reporters to subs, photographers, artists and the rest. Don’t rely on spell checks was one of the warnings. It took a few minutes to wade though the lot until word passed round that there was a glaring typo. “OCCURED” it bleated. One ‘R’. Of course, words in capitals are normally immune from spell checks.

A few minutes later office staff were dispatched to collect all the colour brochures. No doubt they’re heading for the incinerator, shredder or some other waste disposal system that will hopefully leave no trace of the brochures’ existence.

It looks like Brisconnections are scrambling to privately do a deal with Nick Bolton (despite publically trying to wind Nick’s investment company up), to avoid being wound up themselves. Whatever the outcome it will be interesting to see what comes out of the woodwork between now and April 29, when next instalment due!

Castlereagh Street in Sydney has finally reopened this morning, after last week’s scaffolding collapse. Before the collapse, the builder had its livery plastered all over the site. Strangely enough, it’s now been completely removed. There’s not one visible reference on the entire site.