Over half-a-million workers injured and thousands killed each year in Australia shows we need to strengthen, not weaken, workplace safety regulation, unions say. Data shows that 600,000 workers are injured per year, 127,000 of those seriously, costing Australia more than $60 billion annually. ACTU President Ged Kearney said: “This raises serious questions about workplace safety at […]
Attempts by the Queensland premier Campbell Newman to reassure Queenslanders about his public hospital privatisation program are disingenuous and also confirm that one aim is to cut the pay and working conditions, including safe staffing systems, of nurses, midwives and other health workers, the Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) said on Monday. The QNU was responding […]
Insecure work is pushing more Australians with jobs below the poverty line and entrenching inequality, the ACTU said today. ACTU president Ged Kearney said Anti Poverty Week, which starts today, was a reminder of the difficulties faced by millions of Australians on low incomes. “Despite the strength of our economy over the last decade, there […]
Low-paid hospitality workers will be the winners from a Fair Work Australia decision to reject a Restaurant and Caterers’ Association bid to scrap penalty rates on Saturdays and Sundays. ACTU president Ged Kearney said the decision recognised the importance of penalty rates in compensating workers for working unsociable hours. “Workers in hospitality should be relieved […]
NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) members at Dubbo Hospital voted on Tuesday October 1 to suspend for two weeks the planned closure of the hospital’s Emergency Medical Unit’s (EMU) six beds after hospital management agreed to try and fill, as quickly as possible, the large number of nursing vacancies in the emergency department. Late last […]
NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) members at Dubbo Hospital have voted to close the six beds in the hospital’s Emergency Medical Unit (EMU) from Monday afternoon, 30 September, and ban unreasonable overtime in the emergency department (ED) from next Friday, 4 October, in response to unsafe nursing levels in the ED. The six beds will […]
Aged care workers are having promised pay rises reduced or withdrawn after the Abbott Government said it would tear up Labor’s workforce compact guaranteeing higher wages in the sector, the ACTU revealed today. The Government must now make clear whether it will follow through with $1.2 billion in funding to lift chronically low pay in […]
The NSW Nurses & Midwives Association (NSWNMA) has slammed renewed calls from sections of the Liberal Party for an increased GST rate as inequitable and a typical conservative approach to public financial management. The NSWNMA also said ACT Labor leader, Katy Gallagher, should not let herself be sucked into this renewed conservative attack on low […]
NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) delegates and members from around the state will join Global Nurses United’s first international day of action on 17 September, as part of their ongoing Ratios put patient safety first campaign to get the O’Farrell Government to provide guaranteed, safe nurse staffing levels in all public hospitals, public hospital […]
ACTU President Ged Kearney said plans by the new Coalition Government to abandon wage increases for up to 350,000 workers in aged care and childcare was in direct conflict with Tony Abbott’s commitment that no worker would be worse off. “It is a betrayal by the Coalition of some of Australia’s lowest paid workers, in […]
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