Grill’d has been caught out using government subsidised, low-paid "traineeships" to suppress the wages of their workers to below award rates. These traineeships allow Grill'd to pay their workers less than the minimum wage on the basis that they will get to spend 20% of their work time training, except research done by Canberra Students for Fair Work found that 95% of the staff they surveyed were not given any time for that training. Not only are they using their dodgy "traineeship" program to underpay their workers, but they've also removed all of their penalty rates in their enterprise agreement. Grill'd is doing everything they can to suppress the wages of their workers. It's even been reported that store managers have been given bonuses of up to $12,000 if they keep wages low enough to hit their 'wage targets'. Grill'd workers have had enough of the traineeship scam and the wage suppression. Sign this petition to fight back against Grill'd's dodgy business practices. If you're in Victoria you may be interested in signing Patrick's (Grill'd worker) petition too at the following link: https://www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/grilldunhealthywages-stop-using-dodgy-traineeships-to-screw-young-workers

Workers at Grill’d are sick of scraping by while our hugely successful employer is busy building a global empire. Grill’d employs about 4000 workers around the country across 140 stores, and aims to hit an annual turnover of $1 billion in the next few years. They've tried to build their image as an ethical, community-minded business. But they don’t even pay penalty rates for working on weekends or public holidays, and they're pressuring us to do dodgy traineeships so they can pay us even less. We demand Grill’d restore full Award penalty rates. We demand Grill’d stop using dodgy traineeships to screw its workers even more. And we want an independent audit to ensure Grill’d is not abusing the traineeship system. Grill’d must abide by the industry standard that trainees get a minimum of twenty percent of work time to complete the traineeship.

Kylie is an important Australian icon. She would warm the hearts and souls of the Meredith community with her sweet choons.

On Monday, the Gold Coast Young LNP posted a video that has been widely condemned as racist and offensive. The Empower team was shocked and horrified by the statements made in the video, and did not hesitate to condemn them unconditionally. No such condemnation, or comment, has been heard from Barclay's electoral group - Real for UQU. The attitudes promoted by this video and by Barclay are the kind of attitudes that keep racism against people of colour well and truly alive in Australia, and should be met with outrage, not silence. Unfortunately, Barcaly's behaviour in this video mirrors what many students reported witnessing from multiple Real campaigners during the 2019 UQU election: casual racism and discrimination. Empower stood up to this behaviour then, and we will stand up to it now. These beliefs have no place at our university, or in our student union. Barclay Mcgain must resign.

Less than a week after being rejected in the Senate Scott Morrison has delivered on his promise to big business and put his union-busting bill through the House of Representatives again. But before it can be law it must go to the senate. The senate rejected union busting only a week before Morrison has rushed the same law back into parliament. These union-busting laws will hurt working people in this country. These laws will make it harder to win pay rises, harder to keep workplaces safe and will make it easier for bad bosses to do the wrong thing. These laws continue a double standard that targets unions with deregistration over minor errors, like filing paperwork late, yet the big banks continue to get away with outrageous, ongoing criminal behaviour. Morrison’s laws are union-busting pure and simple. Morrison has no plan to stop the criminality of the big banks, no plan to end wage theft and has one set of rules for banks and big business and another for working people and unions.

Educators’ work is guided by the National Quality Standards for early childhood education. These standards are founded on research and international best practice. These seven standards cannot be reduced to a 4-star rating system. High-quality early education cannot be reduced to a 4-star rating system. This rating is being promoted as a process that educators have been consulted on, even though no evidence of this has been provided. It’s imperative that educators have their say - so please sign and share this petition to show the NSW Government that quality early education is worth more than 4-stars!

Treasurer Tim Pallas is investigating the sale or part-privatisation of VicRoads. Bringing the private sector into VicRoads will mean job cuts, erosion of services, the closing down of regional offices, and risks to the security of our personal data and the integrity of our information. And workers have seen too many times what happens to wages and conditions of those who keep their jobs when the private sector takes over the management of public services This isn’t what anyone voted for when this Government was re-elected in 2018. Daniel Andrews acknowledged the failures of privatisation just last year, reflecting with the benefit of history on the problems caused by past sell-offs of public assets. We’re asking him to rein in his Treasurer and protect these workers and their communities.

The Independent Education Union - QLD & NT (IEUA-QNT) has been engaged in collective bargaining negotiations with Queensland Catholic school employers since May 2019. In support of their unresolved bargaining claims, union members commenced a series of work bans in November 2019. These included banning attendance at staff meetings, banning additional supervisions and banning employer requests for data. On Friday, 22 November 2019 the employers advised all staff that they would lockout over 7000 teachers and support staff indefinitely with no pay if they continued to apply their lawful work bans. The employers now have the shameful title as the first Catholic school employers in the country to have ever threatened a lockout of their own staff. The Catholic Church has a long history of commentary and advocacy on the dignity of the worker. These teachings support the rights of workers to withdraw their labour. The employers have betrayed not only their workers, but also the very values of the Catholic Church by seeking to intimidate and penalise their staff for taking lawful action. Recent claims by Queensland Catholic school employers of having 'no intention to lockout employees' are inaccurate. By seeking to invoke section 471(4) of the Fair Work Act against employees (who undertake work bans), employers refuse to “accept the performance of any work by the employee”. The employer action would mean that employees undertaking the work bans would be excluded from work and effectively the school site. What is needed for Catholic school staff: * We call on Queensland Catholic school employers to immediately withdraw their threat to lockout their employees undertaking lawful work bans. * We call on Queensland Catholic school employers to uphold established Catholic Church teachings regarding the dignity of the worker to be free from threats, coercion and duress. * We call on Queensland Catholic school employers to bargain in good faith with Catholic school employees to resolve remaining issues of workload and wage parity.

Cleaners at Queen Vic Market ensure that it remains clean and safe. Sacking three quarters of the cleaning workforce will mean a serious reduction in the cleanliness of the markets. These cleaners have worked here loyally for many years and have expert knowledge that cannot be easily replaced. Without these cleaners Queen Vic Market won't be the thriving hub it has been. We need Jane Fenton to act now.

Lactalis is one of the biggest dairy companies in the world. They are making mega profits. Yet we are barely surviving on their poverty wages. We can only just afford to pay our rent, soon we won’t be able to even afford to put petrol in the car to get to work. Women at our site have had to get second jobs as cleaners and gardeners just to get by. In the packing department, where a majority of women work, we aren’t even able the higher classification levels. We deserve to be paid equally to other workers. It’s only fair.

The Morrison Government is set to make a decision on whether to relocate full-cycle docking of the Collins-class submarines from Osborne shipyard in South Australia to Henderson in WA. Each Collins-class submarine goes through this maintenance every 10 years to ensure they remain at the cutting edge of defence technology, and each maintenance fit-out will typically take two years. It is in the national interest to bring full cycle docking to WA to diversify Australia’s Defence infrastructure in case of an emergency situation. South Australian workers are contracted to design and build nine Hunter-class frigates over the next 15-20 years, and the 12 Attack-class submarines to be delivered in the early 2030s.  Having both manufacturing and maintenance of these national assets in one place means a greater risk in an emergency. We need to do what is in the national interest and diversify these skills across the country, to build resilience for our navy-  especially in a situation where Australia might have to defend itself.  Western Australia has the workers, the skills and the capability to take on full-cycle docking in Henderson by 2024.  It is also where the submariners are based, which means greater operating efficiency in the Indian Ocean, an area of increasing strategic importance.

I'm one of dozens of current and former Mecca employees that have been on the receiving end of bullying, intimidation, discrimination and favouritism whilst working in their store. After just a few weeks of working at Mecca I began to dread going to work. I was bullied and ridiculed by managers over trivial issues, often on the shop floor in front of customers. After a month and a half I raised concerns with my line manager about the bullying I was experiencing, and shortly after I was fired from Mecca. Mecca Brands have been named the fourth best place to work in 2019 but the façade as the greatest place to work is not the case. Mecca workers, most of whom are young women in their 20s, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Mecca has a legal responsibility to provide a safe working environment and they are falling well short. The problem must be fixed from the top. Jo Horgan can fix this problem. She can weed out bullying and discriminatory behaviour and put an end to it. The community is now watching to see that workers have a safe and discrimination-free workplace. Mecca workers have broken their silence, read more here: https://www.theage.com.au/business/companies/its-all-fake-beauty-giant-mecca-facing-bullying-claims-20191117-p539q4.html