My New Woke Agreement (Read: Work Agreement)

Over the last few months, my employer has been negotiating with staff to create a new work agreement that outlines our new working conditions and entitlements. As you can probably guess, being a modern university and all, it’s more of a “woke” agreement than a work agreement. Anyway, here’s some highlights from my new woke agreement. And yes, this is real (although, I will blur out any private information).

Exhibit A. “Gender Affirmation Leave. If you are a transgender person, you will be able to take up to 20 days off from work, per year, to seek gender affirming care (including surgery and medical appointments), without loss of pay.”

First of all, I’d just like to point out that I am not here to speak badly of people’s identity, or personal preferences, or way of life, or whatever else. People are who they are. As I’ve always said, as long as people aren’t hurting others, then they can live their lives how they see fit. However, this work condition I see as inherently not fair. If equality is the goal, why is this not open to all employees? I mean, it’s not just transgender people who sometimes seek out surgical intervention to change their appearance. There are lots of different reasons. For example, what about obese people who for health reasons, or otherwise, wish to remove excess fat through liposuction, or gastric bypass surgery, or other bariatric surgery. Why are they not entitled to 20 days off from work? What about people with body dysmorphia, or anybody else who isn’t satisfied with the size of their nose, or ears, or breasts? Are they not entitled to 20 days off to undergo cosmetic surgery to help them achieve their desired physical identity? Here’s a bit of a stranger one, but it’s a real condition. Xenomelia, literally meaning “foreign limb”, is a neuropsychiatric condition in which an individual has an intense, persistent belief that one or more of their limbs does not belong to their body. They regard it as an unnatural appendage that should be discarded. Do they get 20 days off per year to undergo corrective surgery? If not, why not?

Exhibit B. “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. If you are required to use an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander language at the request of the University, you will be eligible to receive an annual allowance of $3,000.00.”

Just to be clear, I’m not against Aboriginal people. I wish everybody the best in their life. But the university have decided that only one category of people are deserving of an extra $3,000 per year to speak a language other than English? What about Chinese speakers, or Latin speakers, or anybody else? Again, this is not against Aboriginal people, but why are the university only going to give them extra cash? It just doesn’t seem very fair, and it certainly isn’t bringing us closer to equality. Presumably, Aboriginal staff members are already on a pretty decent salary as they are university employees, so why do they need the extra $3,000 at the expense of everybody else who are not entitled to it? It’s just wrong in my opinion.

Another one: “If you are an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Person, you will be entitled to 10 days’ paid and 15 days’ unpaid leave for the purpose of attending to Cultural and Ceremonial Responsibilities.”

Again, the same argument applies. Why is it only that one group of people are entitled to cultural leave? Does nobody else in the world have their own culture? Obviously, everybody has their own culture. To say that only one group of people are entitled to cultural leave is just plain wrong. It means while one group of people are off on paid cultural duties, the rest of us are stuck back at work. Fairness has gone out the window!

What else has gone out the window? Australia Day! “Employees who wish to substitute Australia Day for another day in the year, will be eligible to do so, subject to genuine operational requirements. Work done on the Australia Day public holiday will not attract public holiday overtime rates.” Look, if you don’t want to celebrate Australia Day, fine, but why would you want to go to work? Everyone loves a day off, don’t they? Anyway, my family love Australia Day. We go every year, and so do a lot of other people of all different nationalities including Aboriginal people. My wife is Chinese, she loves Australia Day, too. It’s a day to celebrate our diversity and our oneness as Australians. You’d think it would be right up the university’s alley, but it isn’t. They want us to be divided, but don’t expect to get public holiday rates!

Unfortunately, if you want to work, you have to agree, or at least, pretend you agree with these conditions. Look, I’m all for equality, but is this the right approach? Grouping people by ethnicity and gender, and then giving certain groups more benefits than the rest of us? That’s not equality. That’s stupidity.

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn