The Australian Unions Support Centre provides free and confidential assistance and information for all workplace issues. We’re here to provide support, regardless of your job or industry. All Support Centre enquiries are 100% confidential.
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“When you get on an aircraft, every crew member could be on a completely different pay scale.”
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/06/06/how-can-staff-be-paid-more-than-their-managers/
‘Labour hire’ may sound unassuming but behind the label hides terrible wages, unreliable jobs, and poor conditions.
New research is in. And it’s not good.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/05/24/fancy-earning-11-59-less-than-your-workmates/
Here are just three ways the budget could make a difference for you.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/05/09/the-federal-budget-that-could-make-or-break-workers/
“We love our ABC and want it to be a great place to work. I’m standing with MEAA to win a fair deal.”
How have we reached this point? Because wage growth has looked like a bumpy footpath for the past decade while corporate profits have scaled mountains.
It’s a shocking figure that has gained massive media attention, making headlines in the ABC and the Guardian. Even The Australian understands that one in four Australian skipping meals means we need urgent reform.
If nothing changes, we will continue to see educators leave the sector in droves. Not for lack of love, but because it breaks our hearts to be forced to put profit above children.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/11/19/strength-and-safety-for-childcare-workforce/
Everyone has a bad boss story. Robyn Peeples is fictional but I could swear I’ve met him several iterations of him in various workplaces before.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/11/14/all-across-the-country-its-action-action-action/
Everyone has a bad boss story. Robyn Peeples is fictional but I could swear I’ve met him several iterations of him in various workplaces before.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/11/04/robbin-people-tales-of-a-bad-boss/
“It’s really clear that the people who work at the ABC care deeply about it, and they want it to run properly. They want the ABC to be doing everything it’s supposed to be doing for the Australian public.”
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/11/02/media-workers-tell-the-abc-its-time-for-change/
Prices on everything are going up but our wages have failed to match those increases. The budget is a chance to turn the trend around. But don’t just take it from us. It’s what the experts are saying too.
There has been a great deal of media and political fuss made over ‘Stage 3 tax cuts’ but rather than become lost in the numbers, let’s have a look at what they mean for workers.
This is a really important moment for CPSU members. We’ve been dealing with nearly a decade of the coalition bargaining approach across the public sector, and that’s included wage freezes, it’s held back wages growth, and it’s prohibited any improvement in conditions.
The workers that bring you the ‘Genius bar’ at Apple have made a clever move: they’ve joined their union.
At first glance, it looks like there is a secret behind the extraordinary figures of CEO pay packets. After all, how is it even possible that anyone person can ‘earn’ hundreds of millions of dollars?
ACTU Secretary Sally McManus joined us on The Bulletin this week to reflect on what came out of the Jobs and Skills Summit.
Hiring 13-year-olds is a recipe for exploitative disaster. They would be paid even less than their 15-year-old counterparts and, owing to their age, would have so little voice and agency in their workplaces.
Australia needs sustainable pay increases so that working people’s pay keeps up with the cost of living and productivity increases. For this to occur we need to modernise the collective bargaining system.
It is important to remember that the steady decline in enterprise bargaining is one of several factors contributing to this stagnation of wages.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/08/30/workers-deserve-easy-access-to-the-bargaining-system/
We are staring in the face of a massive cost of living crisis where the prices everywhere have gone up but our wages have not. So what do we do to tackle such a big challenge?
Perhaps the only thing slower than watching grass grow is watching the rate of wage increases in Australia.
Challenging economic times call for bold thinking. So how about this for an idea? Imagine if Australia had an economy that worked for people, rather than one that exploited them.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/08/15/an-economy-that-serves-workers-id-like-to-see-that/
If corporate profiteering is the Hollywood cowboy riding off into a sunset of success, then workers’ wages are the cacti left in the billowing dust.
“Despite being in a high inflation environment, despite seeing the costs of everything going up, those settings would ordinarily point towards workers being able to get a decent increase in their wages, what we see is more money going towards profit, less money going towards workers pockets instead,” Dan Walton said.
Huge corporations have chosen to pass on costs to customers rather than absorb them. In a similar fashion, the big oil and gas companies booked super windfall profits while Australian taxpayers have subsidised the bowser price of petrol. The vast majority of these profits head off-shore to overseas billionaires and hedge-funds.
We can’t afford to sweep profiteering under the rug while workers are told, once again, that their wages should decrease for the “health of our economy”.
“I want to be a leader for my community as well as people who are around my age group. I want to let them know, ‘You know what? Joining the union is really good. We need people like you’.”
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/08/03/union-members-speak-up-at-parliament/
The RBA know it well. Profits, not wages, are the key driver of Australia’s inflation break out.
u know how giant tech companies love championing the innovation and productivity of their workers? It was only a few years ago the billionaire tech company CEOs and executives were caught cheating their own employees.
The evidence is in: this cost-of-living crisis could have been prevented if corporate giants had put people over profit.
“What we need in this country is the cost of living crisis addressed through the wage packet. We need price caps on energy, and we need profits taken down a peg or two, because the people at the top of the economy, they’re having a disco”
‘Early Pay Access’ apps are increasingly popular in Australia under the guise of an employee ‘benefit’ – but ultimately they take advantage of already vulnerable workers.
How would you like to live like a CEO for a day? We’re certainly putting our hands up.
Union members have stood together at Carpet Court locations around the country, calling on the retailer to stand up for workers who are facing deep wage cuts and potential redundancies from major supplier Tuftmaster Carpets.
Workers keeping NSW roads safe and functioning are too important to be allowed to strike – but not important enough to warrant a decent pay rise.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/07/07/essential-transport-workers-face-a-real-wage-cut/
When politicians pull out the term “forgotten Australians” what are the chances that they’re referring to you?
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/06/17/who-are-the-forgotten-australians/
Rather than offering pay rises to attract workers, employer groups want to lock in a real wage cut. It seems there’s never a time for a pay rise according to the bosses and their lobbyists.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/06/09/wage-rises-business-groups-tell-workers-tough-luck/
We know that if we want to see real wage increases, we need more than talk. We need to take action.
Australian Unions are stepping up its workplace campaign and launching TV ads in key marginal seats to warn voters that Scott Morrison has not come clean on plans to re-introduce legislation that will remove rights from workers, and put further downward pressure on wages. The ads will run on live and catch-up TV around the…
When it comes to reducing workers’ pay and conditions, stripping workers of a voice, reducing the power to bargain for a better deal, Morrison is obsessive.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/04/20/scott-morrisons-war-on-workers-is-far-from-over/
To deal with wages growth, we need to deal with job insecurity and fix the broken collective bargaining system.
Workers with insecure jobs have fewer rights, lower pay and limited ability to plan for the future. Read the report into insecure work in FNQ
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2021/11/30/spotlight-on-job-insecurity-se-nsw/
The end to lockdowns and restrictions is bittersweet, we can all celebrate seeing our sorely missed family and friends and newfound freedoms, but we would be lying to ourselves if we thought that we were all coming out of this equally. Our frontline workers are exhausted, with 4 in 5 teachers now considering leaving the…
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2021/11/10/workers-battle-stagnant-wages/
Workers with insecure jobs have fewer rights, lower pay and limited ability to plan for the future. Read the report into insecure work in FNQ
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2021/09/23/spotlight-on-job-insecurity-fnq/
The insecure work crisis is hitting the workers of Tasmania hard. Tasmania has the highest level of casual work (26.6%) in the country – that’s 4.7% higher than the national average. Tasmanian workers earn 13% less than the Australian median weekly wage. One in three workers in Tasmania are on insecure work arrangements including casual,…
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2021/09/02/spotlight-on-job-insecurity-and-wages-tasmania/
Check out our special briefing from Sally McManus about the discussions that we are having with the Morrison Government.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2020/06/25/ir-reform-discussions/
Read the full article here
On this day in 1856, Melbourne's Stonemasons fought for – and won – the 8-hour workday as a nationwide industry standard.
Unfair rostering disadvantages workers in insecure work: unions are calling for for roster justice.
