Latest News
What’s in the State Budget for our Disciplines
Last week the Victorian Government handed down it 2023-24 Budget. Unlike...
National Reconciliation Week
National Reconciliation Week is a time for all Australians to learn about...
National Sorry Day
Today is National Sorry Day.Today, and everyday, we remember and...
Latest Campaigns
No Pay? No Way!
Over the past decade staff reductions forced through budget cuts has caused workloads to steadily increase. Health managers have long stopped thinking about how we cope with extra work. We are just expected to do more and more work in the same amount of time. In 2015, hundreds of thousands of hours of unpaid time will be worked to cope with unreasonably high workloads. There is growing evidence of a systemic reliance on unpaid work to keep many services afloat. And this will only increase with cuts to health spending announced in the Federal budget. As workloads continue to grow without increases in staff, the pressure is mounting on already over-worked and stressed staff. The Union wants to use the campaign to: Reduce unsustainably high workloads Enforce Workload Clauses in our Agreements Have fewer members doing unpaid work Eliminate injuries arising from high workloads; and Engage more members in the work of the Union Ready to take action? Find out what you can do right now to support the campaign. How much unpaid work is done? We know that members are working longer hours without being properly compensated. From our work on the Public Sector agreement in 2011-2012, we...
Anna Stewart Memorial Project
What is the Anna Stewart Memorial Project? Designed to encourage more women to be present and active in unions, the Anna Stewart Memorial Project is a structured, two week long internship program consisting of two days each week at Trades Hall, with the remaining days in a union of choice. In some cases women nominated move outside their comfort zone and experience vastly different sectors. Each participant may represent diverse workplace settings, for example finance, education, health, transport and maritime; enabling each participant exposure to a rich pool of skills, vision and experiences. Women form a critical voice and can influence the culture of a workplace. Within unions and at the workplace, women have the immediate capacity to identify workplace aspects and assist in accommodating changing demands through consultation and inclusion. The Anna Stewart Memorial Project has highlighted the way forward for women who are motivated to support other women and continue to nurture voice, opportunity and change. Unions are invited to participate in the Project in a number of ways. They may: Nominate a woman member and either train her in their union office for the two weeks or for one of the two weeks in a “hosting”...
Healthy Futures
Every day we work to protect health – but what’s the health impact of our super? Right now Aware Super, Australia’s health and community services industry super funds, is investing our money in fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas. Burning these fuels for electricity is hugely harmful to our health. Air pollution from coal-fired electricity contributes to cardiovascular and respiratory disease, including lung cancers, leading to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths worldwide each year [1,2]. There are uncertainties around the safety of unconventional gas extraction (including “fracking”) given case reports from the United States of significant groundwater contamination with benzene and other highly toxic petrochemicals [3,4]. And all fossil fuels, when burned, contribute to climate change, which has been identified as the greatest global health threat of our time [5]. Climate change threatens our health by increasing the risks of heatwaves, bushfires, droughts and storms, displacing people and straining our health systems [6]. None of these harms are acceptable when our society should be investing instead in clean, safe, low-carbon alternatives. The price of solar panels has fallen by 80% in the past seven years [7], and renewable energy industries are growing faster than any other form of...