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.
Phone: 1300 486 466
Email: [email protected]
Need Support? Contact Us
On 21 October 1969, legendary union activist Zelda D’Aprano chained herself to the doors of the Commonwealth Building to protest for Equal Pay.
Twelve migrant women workers are suing their employer, Perfection Fresh, for failing to provide a safe working environment and enabling sexual harassment.
It’s thanks to the dedication of unionists over many years that we have Medicare today.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2024/02/02/medicare-40th-anniversary/
Good news – the Albanese government’s new tax-cut plan will provide cost-of-living relief for those who desperately need it most: Australian workers and their families.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2024/01/25/cost-of-living-bonus-for-working-people/
Today is Human Rights Day, and the final day of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, a global campaign held every year.
The final hearing for the Inquiry into price gouging and unfair pricing practices – chaired by Professor Allan Fels AO – wrapped up in Canberra yesterday, with the Inquiry report to be released later this year.
Reckon big business have too much power?
You’re not alone – nearly two thirds of Australians think so too.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/11/14/australians-agree-big-business-have-too-much-power/
Happy Halloween to the Big Business lobby groups who for months have been telling spooky stories about why we can’t close the loopholes. The truth: They’re scared of what will happen to their mega profits if they have to pay people properly. Let’s take a look at the downright lunacy of Big Business scare campaigns….
Share your messages of support with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
We extend our solidarity and congratulations to every unionist on the Hollywood writers’ strike picket line, who have achieved a provisional deal following a 146-day strike – one of the longest writers’ strikes in US history.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/10/06/once-upon-a-time-in-america/
On Saturday 14 October, Australia will have the opportunity to vote in a once-in-a-generation referendum. The question is a simple one and proposes a modest change to our constitution – to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the practical form of a Voice to Parliament.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/09/26/its-time-to-listen-by-saying-yes/
Yesterday the inquiry into Price Gouging and Unfair Pricing Practices commenced in Melbourne, convened by economist and former ACCC chair Professor Allan Fels and commissioned by the ACTU.
In a historic victory for unionists and workers, the Federal Court’s ruling was upheld: Qantas are responsible for the largest case of illegal sackings in Australia’s history, and it’s time for them to take responsibility.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/09/18/qantas-high-court-ruling-in-favour-of-workers/
From food to petrol to electricity to flights: prices everywhere are skyrocketing. As are corporate profits and executive salaries and bonuses.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/08/22/its-time-to-hold-big-business-to-account/
With two-thirds of workers in Australia having experienced wage theft, chances are it could be happening in your industry too.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/06/15/how-employers-get-away-with-stealing-wages/
They grew up during the Global Financial Crisis, survived a decade of conservative governments, and now are well and truly adults. Millennials are thirty, flirty and so not thriving.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/04/21/do-millennials-and-gen-z-really-have-it-that-tough/
ACTU Indigenous Officer Lara Watson joined us on The Bulletin this week, to share what a win for “Yes” in the upcoming Voice to Parliament referendum would mean for her as a proud Birri Gubba woman. Later this year, the Australian public – some for their first ever voting experience – will be asked if…
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/03/03/yes-unions-for-a-voice-to-parliament/
Here are some examples to help you figure out what is genuinely queer friendly, and what is undermining the LGBTIQA+ community – and not just during Mardi Gras.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/02/22/pinkwashing-examples-that-take-the-rainbow-cake/
For 19,000 refugees who have set up new lives in Australia, there is finally hope.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/02/15/permanent-protection-won-for-thousands-of-refugees/
When I finally get around to writing my bestselling dystopian novel, it would go something like this… There would be a handful of very powerful corporations, and they would find a way to hoard wealth amongst and for only each other. They would manipulate a system that was already bitterly unfair and weighted against…
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/02/07/share-buybacks-the-billionaire-get-rich-quick-scheme/
Two years ago on 1 February, the Myanmar military took over the country in a coup and since then has deployed a brutal crackdown against citizen dissent.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2023/02/01/myanmar-human-rights-abuses-can-be-stopped-heres-how/
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/
The conditions that union members fight to strengthen and improve, are conditions that affect young people in a very tangible way.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/10/19/the-youth-is-on-fire-and-theyre-unionising/
This week on the Bulletin, we spoke to primary school teacher and Australian Education Union member, Lauren Duncan. Lauren effused warmth and decency. Exactly the sort of person who you would want tasked with teaching your children in their formative years. Exactly the sort of person that it would be a national shame to…
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/10/13/teachers-or-millionaires-who-deserves-a-bigger-break/
Sally McManus Address to the National Press Club, Wednesday 28th September 2022 Watch the address here. I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we are meeting on – the Ngunnawal people, and pay respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. The Australian union movement supports the Statement from the Heart calling…
My abhorrent crime for which I am forking up well over a week’s pay was keeping my poorly insulated house warm through a bitter winter. I did this mostly for my baby daughter.
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.
A fairer approach and simpler right to flexible work arrangements in our workplace laws that recognise the importance for all of us of balancing work and care.
The evidence is in: this cost-of-living crisis could have been prevented if corporate giants had put people over profit.
How would you like to live like a CEO for a day? We’re certainly putting our hands up.
Ever walked into a bulk-billing clinic when you or a loved one was sick? It wasn’t so long ago that you would’ve had to pay for that trip to the doctor, no matter how small the ailment.
“Because there is such ignorance in the broader Australian community about Indigenous people and our communities and our cultures, it constantly falls on Indigenous people to make up the gaps and fill in the blanks,” Young says.
As working women in the United States take to the streets in outrage, Australian workers can see clearly how important it is to understand our own rights and ensure they remain protected.
When the police formed their barrier along Oxford Street in Sydney, it was far from the first time gay rights activists had faced police violence.
“Will we finally be seen as normal people?”
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/06/20/lives-remain-in-limbo-on-world-refugee-day/
Last night’s election outcome is a win for workers across the country. But it’s not the end of our campaigning efforts. It’s a new beginning.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/05/22/yesterday-australia-voted/
We have had a stellar win for women and LGBTQIA+ workers only yesterday when we won support for 10 days paid family & domestic violence leave in our Fair Work case. We’ve made some huge achievements this year and are striving towards even better workplaces to make sure no one is left behind.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/05/17/how-unions-are-building-queer-friendly-workplaces/
The RBA’s increase to the cash rate by 0.25 per cent to 35 basis points has spelled out bad news to workers already battling Morrison’s cost of living crisis.
In a huge backtrack on earlier promises, the Morrison Government has renewed the racially discriminatory Community Development Program until July 2024.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/04/01/morrison-extends-racist-job-program-until-2024/
Have you ever heard of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination? If not, that’s exactly as the Liberal Government intended.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2022/03/21/why-harmony-day-is-another-morrison-cop-out/
National Close the Gap Day this week marked fourteen years since Close the Gap targets were first announced.
It was a time for Australians everywhere to recommit to the aims of the campaign, because the Morrison Government has continued to fail when it comes to closing the gap.
The crucial educational, social and economic role of early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been further highlighted over the past two years, as the interruptions of lockdowns and distancing have exacerbated longstanding barriers to accessing free, high-quality, ECEC in Australia, writes Lauren Piko
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2021/10/22/ecec-is-essential/
2021 has been a year for breaking grim records. As of June 2020, according to ABS statistics, more Australians than ever are working multiple jobs. In the past, a single income from one decent, secure job was enough to feed, clothe and house a family of five. Around about that time, that one income was…
The Pandora Papers have revealed how Australia’s wealthiest are cheating our tax system. When is Morrison going to do something about it?
Addressing the inequalities in Australia’s housing market is essential to our economic recovery, writes Lauren Piko
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2021/08/20/housing-must-be-considered-in-economic-recovery/
With over half the country in lockdown, Morrison must stop shifting blame to the individual for vaccine rollout failures, writes Lauren Piko
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2021/08/06/collective-support-not-individual-blame/
Australian Unions are calling for an immediate reinstatement of an updated JobKeeper program to support workers at risk of losing their jobs.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2021/07/27/jobkeeper-2-will-save-jobs/
Want to help make reconciliation a reality in the workplace? Here are some actions to get you started.
Australian Unions is proud to offer a limited run of the print ‘There is Strength in Numbers’ by Lara Watson, with proceeds going to the First Nation Worker’s Alliance.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2021/05/21/there-is-strength-in-numbers/
Creating an inclusive culture is a job for everyone. To celebrate IDAHOBIT, we’ve compiled three small changes you can make to help LGBTIQ+ workers feel respected and included.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2021/05/17/inclusive-language-in-the-workplace/
Australian Unions have released For a Stronger, Balanced and Inclusive Recovery – a report proposing solutions to protect working people and build greater resilience in the economy.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2021/04/27/for-a-stronger-balanced-and-inclusive-recovery/
Our international partners are getting on with transitioning to a zero-carbon economy, showing climate transition can go hand in hand with job creation, but the Morrison government continue to make excuses for their inaction.
About Australia’s wage growth is at a record low, but the Government wants to give a $65 billion dollar tax cut to big business. Big business has too much power, and this is just more special treatment from the Government. Many businesses already thumb their noses at paying their taxes, exploiting loopholes to offshore profits…
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2017/06/08/our-tax-system-is-broken/
The Wave Hill Walk Off was one of the key events of modern Australian history.
https://www.australianunions.org.au/2016/08/22/fifty-years-since-the-wave-hill-walk-off/
The gender pay gap now at its lowest point ever at 11.5%. If we continue to progress as we are, the gender pay gap in Australia could close completely within nine years.
In Australia, your rights as a worker can differ when it comes to your type of employment, especially when it comes to your health and safety, job security, wages and entitlements on the job.
