The Safe Haven Cafe offers a vital alternative to emergency department visits for people experiencing non-urgent mental health issues. It's led by LLEW (Lived & Living Experience Workers), providing compassionate, peer-based support that is accessible and non-judgmental. With the growing crises in housing, cost of living, and social isolation, the need for services like the Safe Haven Cafe has never been more urgent. Closing this service directly impacts those who are already marginalised and struggling to access mental health care. The lack of affordable and accessible options—due to long wait times and high costs—leaves many people without support when they need it most. This closure would be a failure of St Vincent's commitment to its own values of compassion, justice, and person-centred care. We cannot afford to lose this service. Stand with us to protect mental health services in our community!

Peter Dutton’s colleagues want to slash the Superannuation Guarantee to just 9% for us... while maintaining their own at 15.4%. This would cost the average 30-year-old worker up to $165,000 in lost super by the time they retire.  The Liberals also plan on pushing first home buyers to take money from their superannuation to buy a house, inflating house prices while robbing young Australians of security in retirement.  Australia has one of the best retirement income systems in the world. Let’s protect it.

Temporary migrant workers are not eligible for the Fair Entitlements Guarantee.    This exclusion creates a two-tier workforce, where migrant workers are left with nothing while others are protected. It rewards dodgy employers who exploit migrant labour, shut down their businesses, and walk away without paying what’s owed. 🚨 If we don’t act now, this will only get worse. When employers get away with underpaying or abandoning workers, it drags down wages and conditions for everyone. This isn’t just a migrant worker issue—it’s a union issue, a worker issue, and a fairness issue. 📢 Sign the petition today and stand in solidarity with migrant workers! 🔗 Read our Policy Brief “Expanding the Fair Entitlements Guarantee” here

No student should have to risk their health while paying rent. Overheated rooms lead to illness, sleep deprivation, and mental health struggles, especially for regional, remote, and international students who already face extra challenges. The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that extreme heat is a growing health crisis, worsened by climate change. Heat exposure can cause exhaustion, dehydration, and even death. It disrupts sleep, reduces focus, and harms wellbeing and academic performance. WHO stresses that safe indoor temperatures are essential. As temperatures rise, inaction is not an option. Students are paying too much to live in unsafe conditions. Real change happens when we push together. By joining this campaign, you’re demanding Curtin and UniLodge step up, stop ignoring student welfare, and provide real solutions. We won’t accept inaction. Speak up. Stand with students. Demand better living conditions—now!

To deliver the highest standard of care, the Victorian Public Mental Health system requires the work and skills of many different disciplines. HACSU members recognise that to be successful and achieve our goals, we must all stand united.

To recap, when the Department of Child Protection released a tender that would lock in below award wages our Union took action and has been working to resolve the issues. After weeks of direct advocacy, your action over the last 24 hours has helped lock in a win and today we have spoken with the Minister Hildyard's office to confirm the Department would update the tender that has now been published to the sector. We thank the Minister and the Department for listening to you, the frontline workers. Now, our work continues to: • Push for a state wide fair jobs code for community services to ensure all Government tenders reflect fair wages and secure jobs • Win a fair Award Award classification structure to properly reflect your skills and experience As we've experienced overnight, when community sector workers take action we can change Government policy and win good outcomes for our members. Share this win with your workmates and ask them to join you in our Union so we can keep improving working conditions across the youth and community services sector: www.asusant.com/sant.com

Employee pharmacists are Australia’s lowest-paid health professionals and are leaving the industry in droves. Professional Pharmacists Australia (PPA), the union for employee pharmacists and technicians, has submitted a comprehensive case to the Fair Work Commission calling for a long-overdue minimum Award wage increase for pharmacists of $188.30 per week and a 14% increase for Interns, Pharmacists In Charge and Pharmacy Managers. But the Australian Private Hospitals Industrial Association (APHA) is calling on the Fair Work Commission to block all proposed pay increases. Pharmacists deserve better and are calling on APHA to acknowledge the vital role of pharmacists by amending their submission to the Fair Work Commission to support a fair pay increase.  Sign this petition to demand that APHA stop blocking a pay increase to the minimum award rate. Let’s show APHA that their stance isn’t just unsustainable – it’s deeply unpopular.  Pharmacists deserve better, and with your signature, pharmacists can put pressure on APHA to change their position.  Together, we can demand change. Support Australia’s pharmacists today: 1. Sign the petition to show your support for fair wages for pharmacists. 2. Share this petition with everyone you know – pharmacists, healthcare professionals, and community members who rely on and value pharmacists’ expertise.

The ASU has been fighting for years to have the Portable Long Service Authority allow workers to apply for registration rather than waiting for their employer to do the right thing (with no consequences from the Authority). While the Authority recently created a webform to this end, the ASU has had no indication that these applications are being processed!  What we have seen from the Authority over the last 5 years since the Portable Long Service Scheme went live is:  • prioritizing collaborative ‘education’ of employers who repeatedly flout the legislation and continual ‘last chance’ warnings from the Authority;  • dismissing and ignoring Community Services workers – including many workers being told to be patient for a period of several years, while the Authority has friendly discussions with employers;  • refusing (until mid-2024) to implement a Worker Application form, despite this being a legislative requirement; and  • treating their role as financial fund managers rather than service providers for Community Services Workers;  and regulators of sketchy employers.   ASU Community Services members fought hard to get this scheme in place, and we’re not going to let the Authority leave eligible workers out in the cold.

Tasmanians deserved a budget that invested in our critical public services, a budget that provided the resourcing required for workers to effectively deliver high quality public services to the community.   Privatisation and cuts are never the solution.   The cuts to be made through “efficiency dividends" have drawn significant criticism from prominent independent economist Saul Eslake who has labelled them “crude” and a “very poor means of achieving meaningful and lasting expenditure savings”.    The CPSU is campaigning for change (not cuts) to save our public services. 

We hope you’ll be there for them too, as they fight against wage theft and for better pay and conditions that will allow them to meet the rising cost of living and spend more time with their families.

Interpreters are vital to ensuring access to justice, healthcare, and essential services.  Interpreters facilitate communication between people with limited English proficiency, Deaf and hard of hearing and the public sector professionals they interact with in important, or even critical, life situations. Court Services Victoria and Language Service Providers (LSPs) are cutting interpreters' pay and reducing their hours, adding stress to an already demanding job.    Under the RNS, interpreters are considered officers of the court. Currently, the conditions faced by interpreters are well below any standard applicable to an officer of a court.   Recent changes undermine long-standing fee structures, leaving interpreters with a further degradation of their pay and conditions – pay and conditions that are not commensurate with the role, responsibilities and expectations quite rightly, of the professionals and community members who rely on them.   The Victorian Government initiated reforms to language services in 2018 which have yet to be completed. This has left the sector exposed to downward price pressure from Government agencies leading to aggressive competition among LSPs at the expense of the workforce. This has a direct impact on outcomes in justice, law enforcement, healthcare and all service provision generally.   The Victorian Government’s failure to address procurement reform has led to further erosion of interpreters’ pay and conditions in the form of: • Reduced minimum engagements; • Covert changes to fee calculation, resulting in lower rates of pay; • No increases to recommended rates in 6+ years; • Reduced pay for working remotely despite its increased complexity. For the justice sector and the community, this means: • The language services sector is becoming unsustainable because: • Experienced interpreters are leaving the sector. • Graduates are not entering the profession due to the poor conditions. • Failures can occur in the administration of justice due to: • Communities being disadvantaged by an absence of procedural fairness in the justice system. • A system that discriminates. • Government and their agencies will be in breach of their own multicultural, access and equity and inclusion policies. • All community services will be jeopardised similarly to the legal sector. • The greater financial consequence of system failures will be borne by the taxpayer. Judicial Council on Diversity and Inclusion Recommended National Standards (RNS) The RNS were produced by a specialist committee appointed by the former JCCD (now the Judicial Council on Diversity and Inclusion - JCDI) comprising Interpreting and Legal Experts, with its first edition published in 2017 and the second in 2022. The RNS are endorsed by the Council of Chief Justices of Australia. Their purpose was to develop frameworks, best practice advice, and resources to support procedural fairness and equality of treatment for all court users throughout Australia. The Implementation of the RNS is not only vital to promoting and ensuring compliance with the rules of procedural fairness. The RNS are concurrently intended to ensure that the interpreting profession throughout Australia develops to the benefit of the administration of justice generally. The RNS are not universally adopted in Victorian Courts. This is troubling, given the diversity of Victoria’s community, we would expect that Victoria should be leading the way. Regrettably, this is not the case. Join Us in Demanding Fairness for Interpreters and the Communities that they serve. All interpreters, translators, legal professionals, healthcare workers, and professionals who rely on interpreters at work, please sign this petition! Let’s show the Victorian Government that we stand together for justice, fair treatment, and the right to fair pay and conditions.   Get involved: Contact [email protected] for more information or to find out how to further support the campaign. Petition To The Legislative Council of Victoria: We, the undersigned residents of Victoria draw to the attention of the Legislative Council, the ongoing degradation of conditions and standards in Victorian Courts. We note the reduced terms of engagement for court interpreters by Court Services Victoria and the stalled procurement reform for this sector by the Victorian Government and the failure to universally adopt the Recommended National Standards for Working with Interpreters in Courts and Tribunals in Victorian Courts.   We, the undersigned residents of Victoria, therefore, request that the Legislative Council of Victoria call on the Victorian Government to:   1. Restore the previous engagement terms for interpreters in Victorian Courts, with half-day or full-day rates. 2. Adopt, fund, and implement the JCDI Recommended National Standards for Working with Interpreters in Courts and Tribunals, in full, within Victorian Courts and Tribunals. 3. Resume consultations towards procurement reforms for the language services sector to mandate higher standards in professionalism and quality. 

Medical librarians are highly skilled and specialized Allied Health Professionals who deserve to be treated with respect. The plan to transition the library to an infrastructure-only service (focused on e-resources, document delivery, and interlibrary loans) is short-sighted and disregards the valuable contributions of these dedicated workers. We, the undersigned, demand RMH reverses this decision and takes immediate steps to support Medical Librarians and all Victorian patients by committing to maintain the essential library service.