Security guard Pete Martin has two degrees but he's one of the lowest paid people in the affluent capital of Australia.
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He has an 11-month-old baby. His wife isn't earning because she's looking after the child.
He also has cancer. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia was diagnosed on May 19, 2018 and he is still undergoing chemotherapy. It has not cleared.
In between sessions of chemotherapy, he works nights as a security guard at the headquarters of the Department of Human Services in Greenway in the ACT. It's the agency responsible for Medicare and Centrelink.
Mr Martin says the household income is $1000 a week but changes in his roster would cut it to the basic $850 a week.
That, he says, is not enough to live on. Rent has to be paid and he needs a car because there's no public transport at the unsocial hours he works.
"We don't want millions and millions of dollars. We just want to be treated fairly," he said.
"I just want to go to work and feed my family. We don't want to buy Ferraris."
He says the squeeze on his pay is because the company he works for directly, Secom, wants to cut his overtime pay.
On top of that, he says his shift pattern is being changed from four nights of work, followed by four days off and then another four nights of work to a mix of days and nights in a less regular pattern, and that will make it difficult for him to have regular chemotherapy.
He said that many guards worked nights because they cared for family in the day and increased flexibility of their rosters made that much harder, if not impossible.
In a way, they are being squeezed by a system.
The big and famous institutions in Canberra contract out security. If you see a security guard at the Australian National University or the Australian War Memorial, the actual employer will more than likely be Wilson Security. Government departments use Wilson Security and also Secom. The former's parent company is Chinese and the latter's Japanese.
According to United Voice, the union that represents security guards, the cheapest contractor gets the contract so the squeeze on labour costs (the wages of security guards) is fierce.
According to Lyndal Ryan, the union's ACT branch secretary, "the cheapest wins."
She thinks the clients - the famous public institution in the nation's capital which contract out security - take little interest in the wages of the guards. "The clients are heartless. I hope it doesn't happen to their families," she said.
At the ANU, for example, a security guard gets around $850 for a 45 hour week as an employee of Wilson Security. The rate for casuals is $21.26 an hour.
There are 35 companies registered to provide security in the ACT, with just over than 3000 workers on their books. "This is an industry in free fall," Ms Ryan said, "with a race to the bottom".
Of the industry in general, she said, "contractors have chosen the low road, leading to the proliferation of subcontracting and sham contracting arrangements and dodgy employment practices."
The union wants institutions to employ staff directly. The argument over security guards also applies to cleaners and kitchen staff.
Secom said it was "committed to their employees and ensuring that we meet all of our legal and moral responsibilities."
It complied with its workplace agreements and said it had delayed implementing roster changes to discuss them further.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
