read work contract carefully!

Joy is 37, married with three young children, and she earns very good money doing contract work, but much of it involves some pretty toxic jobs.

"Primarily, I'm working for money to put towards my children’s college fund," explains Joy. "I don't want them ending up with an education debt."

"My husband, David, earns good money and doesn't want me to work full-time," explains Joy, "so contract work is a great way for me to make big money as well as keep up with my other duties."

"I put all the money I earn into an education fund," explains Joy. "I don't need anything for myself, David gives me plenty of money."

"I'd like to work for personal fulfillment as well," says Joy, "but I've long given up expecting contract work to be great for my self-esteem and social life."

"When I take on a contract job now all I want to know is exactly how much money I'm going to get and how long I will be required to work."

Joy has become an expert on contracts after the various jobs she has had.

"An unfair work contract," says Joy, "is one in which employers do not state fully all terms and conditions, or go to great lengths to state your responsibilities to them but omit their responsibilities to you."

Joy says that the reason why so many employers do not state fully all terms and conditions in a contract is that they do not wish to be held to anything, or become legally responsible for anything they have promised but have no intention of delivering.

"I am amazed at the difference between my employment contracts," laughs Joy. "Some are ten pages long setting out everything I needed to know, and some are merely a few sentences in length stating only salary and period of employment."

"For a short-term job of a month's duration," says Joy, "salary and period of employment is probably the only information I need to know, but without something simple as 'hours of work' I am very aware of the fact that I may end up working ten hours a day for the entire period."

"Yes, this happens, " says Joy, "and David was mad with me for working so late. I didn't have a leg to stand on because 'hours of work' were not in my contract."

"Also, because it was a workplace where everyone was expected to work late I didn't feel it was worth complaining about. It was, after all, just a short-term job."

"However, when I was offered a continuing contract I declined to take it up," laughs Joy. "Working ten hours a day was not my idea of a perfect job and my family life was suffering as a result of it."

"For a work contact of three month's duration or more," says Joy, "I really need to have as much information in writing as I can, and I make sure that it is a mutual agreement not one that is heavily slanted in favor of the employer."

"For instance," explains Joy, "it is vitally important to be aware of the terms of termination. In my present contract it states in words to the effect that if the project is completed before the specified date of contract termination then the employer has the right to terminate employment immediately."

"Bearing in mind that the project in question is ongoing, requiring far more than the six month's contract given, I felt that this is unfair and unethical. It means that the employer is asserting the right to determine at which stage the project can be deemed 'completed'."

In other words, Joy would slog her guts out for four months getting the project off the ground, and then the employer would deem the project to be 'completed' and effectively not only deny Joy the right to set the project in motion but also deny her a further two months of employment, pay and entitlements.

"Needless to say," laughs Joy, "under these unfair conditions I am taking my own sweet time on the project and making sure it is nowhere near completed in six months!"

"I am also skeptical about a contract maintaining an employer's right to 'terminate employment immediately' upon what he deems to be a satisfactory stage of project completion, without making this right mutual?"

"If I wanted to finish the project quickly and get home to David and the kids," says Joy, "My employer could deny me that right because my estimation of a 'completed' project may not match his."

Bearing in mind the amazing requirements that employers often demand of us - security checks, confidentiality agreements, declarations of conflict of interest, birth certificate, passports, medical examinations, etc - in addition to signing our lives away for a specified period of time, Joy says it is grossly unfair to be offered a contract that neither fully states all terms and conditions nor takes account of mutual obligations.

For lengthy contract work Joy feels that the following information is necessary in a work contracts: salary, date of commencement and agreed date of termination, hours of employment, length of time allowed for a lunch-break, days of employment (e.g. Monday to Friday), job specification (setting out the precise function and duties of the job), entitlements (e.g. Public holidays, sick pay, holiday pay, superannuation, etc), training (e.g. formal or on-the-job), employer occupational health and safety compliance, performance review (stating when and how your work will be assessed), termination (setting out the precise period of notice both you and the employer need to give, and variations depending upon precise breaches of contract by either you or the employer).

Joy says that if a contract does not contain this basic information and she suspects that an employer is taking unfair advantage of her, she then seeks clarification in writing of the information omitted in her contract.

"If a reasonable request for further detail is refused," explains Joy, "then I refuse to take the job on the basis that I risk being miserable in it and would end up having to seek legal advice in order to get out of the contract."

"In a very early contract job I had," laughs Joy, "I hated it and I had to pay a lawyer more than I earned in order to break the contract."

"I feel very sorry for women who do contract work out of necessity," sighs Joy. "I don't have to work, and that's why I can pick and choose the jobs I do - and when I get into trouble I can afford to pay the lawyers!"


This story first appeared as unfair work contracts

verbal agreement lies

If there's one thing Kate wants every working person to know it's that verbal work agreements aren't worth the paper they're not written on.

"In my last casual job I was promised a permanent job after four weeks," explains Kate, "and naturally I worked my butt off for four weeks and then they had the cheek to tell me that I wasn't fast enough to be given a permanent job."

"I put in more work than anyone else at that place and they knew that," says Kate. "They just lied to me to get me to work like a slave for them. They had no intention of giving me a permanent job."

"I couldn't sue them or anything because I didn't have anything in writing," explains Kate. "It was a verbal agreement, a ‘my word against theirs’ situation."

"Even casual workers are entitled to some sort of written advice regarding terms of employment," says Kate, "and without that piece of paper you don't have a real job and you risk being exploited."

"In fact," says Kate, "if you're really unlucky you may not even get paid."

"Verbal agreements are really risky because you won’t have a proper job with all of your entitlements guaranteed," says Kate, "The only benefit is that without a written agreement you are really under no obligation to give notice to quit."

"I had one really bad casual job on a verbal agreement that I quit after my first week's pay and never went back," laughs Kate. “So, I was lucky I could do that and get away with it.”

"I know that some employers are struggling," says Kate, "but damn it, so am I, and exploiting me for their benefit is beneath contempt."

Read more by Kate on this subject:

toughen up labor laws!

temp agencies take away hassles

working on trial

set up to fail

Elise is married with teenaged children living at home and she works as a freelance editor. The work is usually straight-forward and stress-free, but a recent six month contract assignment with a well-known publishing company was so stressful that she nearly had a nervous breakdown.

"It did not occur to me that a department in a big company would still be in the Dark Ages computer-wise," says Elise, "so it was a big shock to start work and be confronted with a DOS prompt rather than the familiar Windows screen."

"It had been well over ten years since I had worked with a DOS based system," says Elise, "so I had to request help to get started."

Someone very reluctantly came to her assistance, but worse was in store for her.

"The documents to be edited were formatted in a very early version of Word Perfect requiring keyboard moves about which I knew nothing," complained Elise. "Without a mouse I was a dead duck."

A request for training in DOS Word Perfect eventually led to some unhappy looking guy turning up and whizzing through the basic functions faster than she could comprehend.

"After ten minutes of this sort of hopeless training," sighs Elise, "I requested a manual and half an hour later one appeared and I struggled on as best as I could."

By the end of her first day she had learned enough to get by, but wait for it - there was more misery in store for her!

"Apparently this department had its own peculiar style of editing," says Elise, "and I didn't discover that everything I had done was not in accordance with it until two weeks later when the Managing Editor returned from leave."

After reasonably inquiring why she was not informed of the peculiar style that differed from every other place she had worked, the Managing Editor blamed Elise for not asking someone!

"Hello?" complained Elise. "How on earth was I supposed to ask someone when I did not know that what I was doing was not in accordance with the department's peculiar style?"

"I have no idea why this vital information was not given to me upon commencement," says Elise, "and anyone who has ever had to re-do two week's worth of work through no fault of their own will appreciate how angry and frustrated I was at the end of the first month."

"With five months to go, I wondered what was next and I didn't have to wait too long to find out," sighs Elise. "To add insult to injury, the Managing Editor then decided in the third month to change the style slightly to make it conform with industry standards - the style I had first used - and I had to re-do the lot.

"I felt totally stressed as I had no control whatsoever over my work," says Elise. "I've never hated anyone before in my life but I came close to absolutely despising the Managing Editor for putting me through such a humiliating and stressful situation."

"I just hope that telling my story will help someone else avoid a similar toxic situation."

Read more by Elise on this issue:

denied training
Hit the ground running