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Not Happy John......

This self-explanatory letter to the editor appears in today's SMH:

"I saw John Howard speaking on the industrial relations laws, saying he had met no one affected. Well, let me introduce myself, Mr Howard. Last year I was working for a company that paid me an extra $5 an hour for working nights and weekends, and I was able to spend a family fun day with the kids.

I then got fired for complaining to my boss over a racist comment she made. Left me high and dry. I had a full-time job one day and was fired the next after working there loyally for two years.

I now have a new job. No penalty rates for working nights or weekends, which run from 7pm Friday to midnight Sunday. I work a total of 27 of those hours, which is more than half the weekend, with no extra compensation.

The family fun day has died a sad death. My two daughters do not understand why Daddy no longer spends time with them. I work all weekend for less money and less family time, and I feel depressed that all I seem to do is work and sleep, and the kids are growing up without their father's guidance.

All this so my company can send its executives on overseas trips or spend more on fancy advertising or whatever it has done with the extra $250 a week that I previously could have expected for working such hours.

Mr Howard, do you take my $250 a week in company tax and put it towards your re-election ads? Every time I see one of them I will think of how my family fun day was taken away from me so you can play those ads on my TV in the house that I will be renting for the rest of my life because houses are a rich person's pleasure now and that dream has also been stripped from hard-working Aussies like me.

That's me, Mr Howard. Glad to finally meet you. Sadly, I am afraid to leave my name as my company would fire me if it knew I'd complained about my wages."

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