Paramedics play a vital role in our community, helping Victorians when they are most in need. But it's challenging work, with paramedics suffering high levels of burnout, occupational violence, and exhaustion - physical, mental and emotional. Exposure to trauma is an unavoidable feature of the job, and increases the prevalence of a number of mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety and PTSD. Paramedics and the AEAV are speaking up about needing the support of the community to win protections for psychological health in the workplace.

The data shows payments were suspended 2.7m times in 12 months, but only 654,000 demerits 'points were handed out. This adds up to roughly 2 million unfair penalties being dished out to unemployed workers every year by privately owned agencies. A 75% error is a national disgrace. This unfair compliance regime has had a catastrophic impact on the lives of unemployed workers. As reported by the New Daily, this punitive policy is driving people into poverty, homelessness, mental health issues and even suicide. Kristian Clancy, 32, was cut off his Newstart payment for not attending a employment service provider appointment despite informing his agency he had a shift that day. Melissa Fisher, 37, was cut off her Newstart due to her employment service provider mistakenly reporting she did not attend an appointment. Zeya Raymond* (name changed) was incorrectly cut of by her employment service provider which led to her contemplating suicide. These are only a few of the hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers being unfairly cut off by their privately owned employment service provider. By stripping unemployed workers of their right to appeal unfair penalties and denying them a right to a reasonable excuse, the Coalition is creating a segregated society. Unemployed Australians – people who have ended up unemployed due to no fault of their own – are being branded as second-class citizens. If an unemployed worker faces an abusive employment service provider, there is nothing they can do. They have nowhere to turn. We know the employment services system is broken. In 2018-19, job agencies imposed 2.3 million penalties on unemployed workers - a seven times increase since 2010. Why is the Coalition giving job agencies more powers to punish unemployed workers? Join the AUWU's struggle for dignity. Sign the petition. New Daily Article: https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/08/07/newstart-unfair-suspensions/ Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/08/more-than-120000-people-whose-welfare-was-suspended-were-not-at-fault-data-shows?fbclid=IwAR2-lmi6UIcFmjD4X9CAFGQYAgekL_JuwbMGWEo_neWMp0DgFgg6U7Annsw Guardian article number 2: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/16/automated-messages-welfare-australia-system?CMP=share_btn_tw

Workers employed at Gumnut in Lithgow are gravely concerned about their workplace entitlements as ECEC Management has not been paying superannuation for up to a year for some workers. Workers at Gumnut are asking for their basic employment entitlements to be met. Will you sign?

The majority of Australians do their grocery shopping at Coles or Woolworths. Yet the farm workers who feed us, who pick and pack the fruit and vegetables we all eat, are enduring wage theft and exploitation on Australian farms. Two thirds of surveyed workers reported earning below minimum wage, sometimes as low as $4.80 per hour. Cash contractors act as controlling mediators between farms and workers, often resulting in stolen wages, no superannuation, sexual harassment, bullying and harassment. Coles and Woolworths must not continue to profit from this exploitation. Add your voice to stand with farm workers today!

Our hours, daily and weekly earnings are lower than they've ever been before, even though we've been doing the same job the whole time. Riders used to be paid $18.50 an hour and now we're not paid an hourly rate at all. Deliveries can be as low as $6 or less, despite Deliveroo promising they wouldn't go below $8 per delivery. There's no transparency and no ability to say no to changes in our wages. We just notice it going down through the app. We work in the cold conditions during winter. We work really hard for peanuts. Seeing our wages go down and down is gut-wrenching. We can't depend on these wages. We are demanding Deliveroo raise our rates of pay and lock them in. Deliveroo workers need security and a living wage. Michael, PK, Radhesh and the Roo Riders

So-called not-for-profit community services provider, Richmond Fellowship Tasmania (RFT), has launched an unprecedented attack on its workforce, establishing a shell company named Richmond Futures and using it to offer staff our own jobs back with reduced pay and loss of permanency. We love our jobs and we want to continue working with the clients we've supported for years - but if we want to stay on, we'll have to take a pay cut and move to a fixed term contract. We're faced with a choice between losing $150 a week and all job security or losing our jobs altogether. RFT has operated for over 30 years supporting people facing mental health challenges and social disadvantage. It has provided the community with excellent services for people in need, but in recent years it has seemingly abandoned the values the organisation was built on. Community services organisations should be demonstrating their values and leading by example – not harming their own workers.

George Calombaris is held up as an industry leader, yet he is not the leader the hospitality industry wants or needs. Aside from stealing millions of dollars from hospo workers, he’s been charged with assault. He’s been given enough chances, now it’s time for him to go. Wage theft is rife throughout the hospitality industry. Celebrity chefs like George Calombaris have gotten rich by stealing from their hard-working employees. This issue has stayed in focus for one reason and one reason alone. Because of the relentless agitation and campaigning by Hospo Voice members about wage theft by George and countless other hospitality employers. The hospitality industry is changing, workers will no longer put up with excuses, we want real action on wage theft. How can we expect the industry to improve if we continue to honour celebrity wage thieves. Ten network; it’s George’s turn to face elimination.

Hochi Mama is a Vietnamese restaurant at the top of Melbourne’s Chinatown. It’s also Melbourne’s number one Asian restaurant on the venue rating site, TripAdvisor. I worked there as a bartender. And I was on a flat rate of $20 per hour, no penalty rates. In just four months I had over $3000 (including super) stolen from me. Often, we felt we were treated like dirt. Hochi Mama had a staff WhatsApp group where we got our rosters, we swapped shifts and management would give us instructions about our jobs. This was also how workers found out they’d been fired, by seeing we’d been deleted from the staff WhatsApp group. It happened to me. It happened to lots of other staff. In front of everyone. Most bosses have the decency to actually TELL you that you'd been fired. Not these guys. And it left everyone feeling afraid and wondering: who’s next? Migrant kitchen staff were treated even worse. They worked double shifts of 13-14 hours for a flat rate of $70 or $100, in cash. I even saw them sleeping on milk crates out the back of the restaurant between shifts. It’s not okay for any worker to be treated like this, particularly in a wealthy country like ours. All over this industry, we see migrant workers treated like an underclass. It’s just wrong. We need to stand together and demand fairness and respect for ALL hospo workers. That’s the only way anything is ever going to change.

In the lead up to the 2018 Victorian Election, Premier Daniel Andrews guaranteed that 92% of the steel used on local projects would be local steel. Local steel means local manufacturing jobs. Andrews has gone back on that local content pledge on the West Gate Tunnel project, with the announcement that the tunnel builder will import 33,000 tonnes of Chinese steel for the project. This is not what Victorians voted for and Premier Andrews needs to reverse this.

After a term of trimesters, it is clearer than ever that this change is detrimental to UNSW staff and students. Students cannot learn effectively under such tight time constraints, and our teachers are struggling with the increased workload. UNSW management should be more concerned with the wellbeing of its students and its workers than the size of their profits. We the undersigned call on UNSW Management to CANCEL TRIMESTERS.

Our boss, Andre Chaaya, kept promising us that we would get paid. But each week, no money came. Now we realise that was just another lie he told us. As weeks turned into months, rent fell behind, the bills piled up, and grocery shopping wasn’t done. At least one worker was left homeless. One worker was reduced to eating plain rice. A worker has cancelled an overseas trip to a wedding of one her best friends because she doesn’t have any money. Suppliers kept calling the pub, demanding to know when they would get paid. Cheques bounced. A major brewery stopped delivering. The coffee machine was repossessed. Our boss disappeared and we had to keep making excuses for him. Last year Mr Chaaya sold the pub’s building and planned to use the $6.15 million from the sale of the property reinvest in his pub business. Where is that money? Why hasn't he used it to pay us? Please stand with us and insist that Mr Chaaya pay us as his first priority. https://vimeo.com/338783413

WesTrac is refusing to talk to its workforce and resume negotiations and refuses to speak to union representatives. This comes after the employer has been actively trying to strip conditions from its workforce. WesTrac employees took a small 1.9% offer in their last agreement because the times were tough on the condition the company would pass on the profits when it was growing again. WesTrac is now expecting 40% growth this financial year and is still trying to undercut it's workforce at every opportunity. AWU members have been undergoing protected industrial action and will continue to until WesTrac starts to play ball and brings a decent offer to the table. Stand in solidarity with WesTrac members and call on WesTrac to accept the AWUs invitation to resume negotiations.