SOCOG wants 50,000 volunteers
10 October 1998Sydney's Olympic and Paralympic organisers have called for 50,000 volunteers - the largest workforce ever assembled in Australia - to provide the labour needed for hundreds of specialist and general jobs critical to staging the Games.
Leaders of the Olympic organising committee (SOCOG) and Paralympic organising committee (SPOC) staged a highly theatrical volunteering launch to call on all people over 18 years of age at the time of the Games to come to donate their labour for a minimum of eight hours a day for 10 days during the Games on top of three half-day training sessions.
Chief executive of SOCOG, Mr Sandy Hollway, said public opinion polling had suggested it was possible several hundred thousand people would apply for 40,000 Olympic volunteering jobs and 10,000 Paralympic jobs, although SOCOG was by no means certain it would get the numbers.
SOCOG had decided to call for volunteers six months earlier than did organisers of Atlanta's Games in case there were difficulties getting those numbers from Australia's much smaller population base.
Under the sponsorship agreement negotiated by Fairfax, volunteering information packages will appear in the Sun Herald and other Sunday papers across Australia this weekend, with registration forms appearing the following Sunday.
Some board members of SOCOG believe attracting enough volunteers will prove very difficult, especially as SOCOG has decided it cannot afford to give them tickets, accommodation or transport to Sydney or other benefits of significant cash value.
SOCOG's president, Mr Knight, said while there were no cash benefits, volunteers would have the chance "to be part of the Australian team".
"Volunteers will also be provided with an official uniform, free transport on the Olympic transport network, free meals while on duty, and some memorabilia which recognises their major contribution in staging of the Games," he said.
Half the volunteers will be people with specialist skills to work in roles including physiotherapists, podiatrists, paramedics, massage therapists, medical records clerks and ophthalmologists, or as translators, doping control volunteers and field-of-play volunteers who will help stage competition.
The other half will be non-specialists and include drivers, people to greet visitors at the airport, ushers and ticket collectors, and runners who will carry film for photographers.
The NSW Police Service will conduct "standard" security checks on all volunteers which will be the same check imposed on full-time SOCOG staff, Mr Hollway said.
The NSW Labor Council expressed concerns SOCOG would try to use volunteers to do jobs that should be available for paid staff.
"We still have some concerns and we want to negotiate on the use of volunteers and security," said the Labor Council's senior industrial officer, Mr Chris Christodoulou.
"In particular we don't want volunteers to be used in security where it undermines the new laws which say security officers have to be licensed,"
"We intend to have further discussions with SOCOG and if necessary with Government to maximise paid employment opportunities in staging the Games," he said.
