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Our services
The Working Women’s Centre SA Inc (WWC SA) is a non-government organisation that provides free and confidential legal advice, information, support and representation to vulnerable workers residing in South Australia about their rights at work.
The WWC SA is a registered charity with DGR status.
We have a team of Industrial Officers who provide comprehensive and confidential legal advice to workers.
We provide legal advice on a variety of workplace-related matters including:
Are you being paid the correct hourly rate? Have you been working hours for free?
Have you been terminated from your employment? You have 21 days to make an unfair dismissal application.
Has your boss raised issues with you about your performance?
Do you need advice about your minimum entitlements for example sick leave, annual leave and hours of work?
Do you know what Award applies to your employment? Has your boss been following the requirements of the Award?
Have you been paid the correct allowances or overtime, and received the correct breaks?
If you are pregnant or about to be a parent, what are your rights to take leave from work? If you are on parental leave, what are your rights to return to your pre-parental leave position?
If you have been a victim of domestic violence, what are your rights in relation to work? Can you take leave?
Have you been treated unfavourably at work or had your employment terminated as a result of a disability, your race, pregnancy, religious dress or your sex?
Have you been spoken to in a sexual way, had sexual comments made about you or have you been touched inappropriately at work?
Do you have a colleague or boss that is consistently being disrespectful towards you, or making you feel unsafe at work? Has the treatment you received at work had an effect on your mental health?
Have you been injured at work?
Have you been made redundant or has your boss spoken about a restructure at your workplace?
Have you been told that you are a “contractor” rather than an “employee”
Do you need help to understand your contract?
What to expect when you call our service
Initial intake call
When you call you will speak to our Client Services Officer.
Our Client Services Officer will take you through a client intake process, where they will ask you a series of questions including
They will also ask you questions designed to generate statistical information.
All of your information is kept confidential, and we will never contact your employer without your permission.
Then you will then be booked in for a 30-minute telephone advice appointment with one of our experienced Industrial Officers.
Initially, we do not provide face-to-face appointments. You will be asked to email any relevant documents for the Industrial Officers to review prior to your appointment.
Whilst we cannot offer a walk-in service, we do conduct walk-in legal advice clinics with our outreach service.
Telephone advice appointment
During your telephone advice appointment, you will have the opportunity to speak with one of our Industrial Officers about your matter. You can ask questions and the Industrial Officer will provide you advice.
We aim to empower you to have the confidence to advocate for your rights in the workplace. We will advise you on the steps to take, and provide you with resources and factsheets to assist you to do so.
If your matter requires further advice or a face-to-face appointment, the Industrial Officer will organise a follow-up appointment after the initial telephone advice appointment.
Representation
We offer further legal advice or representation where we have the resources to do so, where you have a strong claim and where we are satisfied that we can be of assistance to you. In particular, the Centre strives to represent vulnerable groups of workers including migrant workers, international students, casual workers and young workers in precarious work.
We are funded by the South Australian Department of Human Services – Office for Women, by the Australian Federal Government – Fair Work Ombudsman, and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.
If you have a workplace issue and you are not a union member, you can enquire with the WWC SA by doing one of the following:
No, our service is completely free. You do not need to pay us to receive advice from our Industrial Officers. We are a not-for-profit organisation funded by the government and other donations.
There may however be times where you will need to pay for tribunal/commission or court application fees. We will let you know if this is the case.
Our service is completely confidential; all the information that you share with us is only accessible to the staff within our organisation. We will not share any of your personal information that you share with us, especially not with your employer.
Because we are funded by the government, we are required to collect statistical information about our clients for reporting purposes. This data is collected and kept anonymously – all identifying information is removed so that our clients cannot be identified. This data is used to build statistics to gain insights into the demographics of our clients, such as age groups or industry and identifying trends in workplace issues.
If we are pursuing your matter further, there may be instances where we may be required to contact third parties such as your employer on your behalf, or other representatives such as lawyers so that we can provide you with a referral. We will only do this after making sure that we have your permission to make contact and to explain the purpose of why we are contacting them.
We can arrange to have a translator assist, if required. Please advise if you will require this extra assistance when contacting us.
We are happy to chat with you about your requirements. Our first appointments are telephone only. Should you need a face-face appointment we hope the following information will assist.
Our office is located on Level 1 of Station Arcade, 52 Hindley Street Adelaide. Station Arcade can be accessed via Hindley Street, Bank Street, North Terrace and the Adelaide Railway Station.
You can access Level 1, via the lift inside of Station Arcade, which is located next to My Goodness Cafe, near the Hindley Street Entrance. The lift door is 88cm wide and the doorway in our office range between 80cm & 85cm.
There are no steps during day-time hours between Hindley St and the office, but there are steps and/or escalators between the other entrances to Station Arcade. The footpaths around Station Arcade are flat and well surfaced.
Assistance animals are welcome, and drinking water is available.
The bathroom is 20 metres from our office on Level 1, there is a designated ‘womens’ and ‘mens’ bathroom. Upstairs on Level 2, there are 2 gender neutral bathrooms one contains two single stalls the other has a single stall and a urinal. However the bathrooms on both Level 1 and Level 2 however unfortunately are not wheelchair accessible, and are quite small in terms of space. They also do not include a nappy changing area for infants. If required you can use a private space in our offices for this.
The nearest toilet designated for use by wheelchair users is at Adelaide Railway Station.
If you have any further access needs, please get in touch with the Centre.
We are a safe space for workers from many different walks of life.
We pursue our principal object by – Enhancing women’s participation in and contribution to workplace arrangements that improve their economic prosperity and welfare, focusing in particular on:
Our centre is open 9am to 5pm on all week days except Tuesday. We encourage work related enquiries to be directed to the online form. Alternatively you can call us on 1800 652 697 (toll free number) anytime. If we are on another call, you can leave a voicemail and we will call you back.
The WWC encourages feedback from both internal staff, volunteers and committee members, and, external clients. The WWC will ensure that clients, staff and stakeholders are provided with the opportunity to submit suggestions, improvement requests and suggestions about its service. The WWC will conduct regular feedback sessions with stakeholders, which may take the form of surveys, group sessions, focus groups and/or course evaluations.
Responsibilities
The Director and the Client Services Officer at the WWC is responsible for all monitoring and evaluating of all feedback, and for ensuring the appropriate responses are made.
Lodging Feedback
Feedback should be in writing and can be lodged using the WWC feedback form, which is available at the WWC premises or online at the WWC’s website, or through any other methods of feedback collection. Verbal feedback can also be provided by contacting the relevant staff member or the Director at the WWC.
In such cases the feedback will be recorded to ensure that the appropriate follow-up action is taken. Once completed the form should be sent to the WWC Administrator. The WWC Administrator will register the feedback and refer it to the WWC Director. The client services officer is responsible for maintaining a current complaint register. The WWC Director, where required, will refer the matter to an appropriate staff member for investigation and action.
Feedback about Employees
Complaints about employees of the WWC will be directed to the Director. If the Director deems the feedback to be of a nature by which an internal review of the feedback may compromise the efficacy of the feedback, the Director may designate an external person to review the feedback, and, give recommendations regarding the review.
Responses to Feedback
Where contact details have been provided by the staff, volunteer, committee member or client, the WWC Director will ensure that the person lodging the feedback receives a written response within as soon as possible but no later than 14 days after the other feedback is registered.
Where the complaint is made in relation to the WWC’s area of responsibility, the WWC Director will investigate the issue, obtain a report from all relevant staff and volunteers on the matter and ensure that a written response is forwarded to the person making the complaint.
Record Keeping
All original client feedback or complaints forms will be retained by the WWC for a period of three years, along with a copy of the written response from the Director and any other relevant reports or documents.
Feedback Form
Our feedback form can be downloaded as a PDF or as a Word Document.
Please email your replies to reception@wwc.org.au with the subject line: Complaint/Feedback
