Hi everyone,
I work for Ampol in Australia in customer service. I've worked for lots of companies, large and small, over the years and I've never worked for a company that cares so little for their staff. We don't get any staff discounts, except for hot coffee which is 50 cents (I don't drink coffee). There's hardly any incentives (at most a store could win $200 a month to be shared among all employees which ends up being at $10 but all stores in the state are competing for it, we've only won it once in my 5 years). Our 'training' is all online and we're expected to do it in our own time and if it goes overdue we get in trouble. We get no Christmas party, haven't had a staff meeting in about 2 years. They've also cut our hours and we are all constantly overworked and understaffed.
Recently they've sent out a notice saying that as of 31/07/22 we are not allowed to play ANY music in the store because of licensing. I refuse to believe that AMPOL cannot afford a music license. This has really pissed off a lot of the other people I work with too. The morale in the store is already so low that I think being stuck in a store where the only noises is the pumps going off, the hum of fridges, and the sound of customers yelling at us for the price of fuel might break us.
How can I deal with this?? Should I go to HR? Is this something we can strike over?? I'm not in a union but after looking up our union it says you need to be a member before the problem arose… since it doesn't come in until the 31st does that mean I could maybe join the union before then?? Can anyone help or offer some advice please? I'm looking for other work but in the meantime have to stay here… thanks for reading and for any advice!