NUW members in Bendigo recently won a protracted legal case to get entitlements they were owed paid to them following the collapse of Empire Rubber in 2006. However of the $4.5 million win, workers will never see a cent. Nothing. All because corporate law firms are swallowing the win up in fees. LCM Litigation Fund Pty Ltd and Piper Alderman have pocketed 91% of the win, $4.1 million dollars, while their clients have been told they will never see any money and there is nothing they can do. NUW member and former Empire Rubber worker Shane Hogan is owed $15,000. His wife Tracy has said that “To get a letter saying that it’s all been eaten up in fees is very disappointing.” “A lot of people who were laid off did not gain employment afterwards, so they were really relying on getting that money”. Members refuse to accept this gross denial of justice. We are calling on Piper Alderman to waive their fees and give their clients the money they have won. The Law Institute of Victoria’s code of ethics calls for lawyers to “advance their clients’ interests above their own” and to “charge fairly for their work”. Clearly Piper Alderman have failed in their ethical obligations to NUW members at Empire Rubber. In pocketing the cash and failing to meet ethical standards, Piper Alderman undermines the integrity of the justice system to serve the needs of workers. Piper Alderman and LCM Litigation Fund: give workers their money back so justice is closer to being served!

Victoria has gathered sixteen years of evidence of the success of nurse/patient ratios. This evidence has shown patient waiting times reduced in Victoria’s public hospitals. It has led to marked improvements in recruitment and retention of nurses as a result of safer working environments. Our public hospitals have also shown improved economic outcomes since ratios were introduced in 2001. Ratios brought about a 151 per cent increase in patients receiving same day treatment. The system works — it’s time to make Victoria’s public mental health care system a world leader by applying ratios to our mental health wards. New South Wales and Queensland have already introduced nursing ratios in mental health in their own public hospitals. For the full detail on how nursing ratios in mental health would work in Victoria, please check our log of claims: http://bit.ly/mhLOC Thank you for supporting our mental health nurses.

We the Central Coast Community Union Alliance, believe that workers should be treated with dignity and respect. These 68 workers who live locally, shop locally, send their kids to local schools and pay their council rates are simply wanting to protect their hard fought conditions, just like any other worker would do. Local waste operator Ian Hankinson who is leading the strike needs your support to convince the council administrator to take a leadership role and stand up for these workers that keep our streets clean and our community safe. Let's come together and stand with Ian and his 67 work mates and send a message that our community will defend our own and stop a race to the bottom.

Our universal public health system is part of what makes Australia great – but it’s under threat from savage cuts and a privatisation agenda. If Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberals get their way we’ll lose it forever, leaving the sick to suffer. Now is the time to stand up and fight back against the gutting of our public hospitals, the increased costs on patients and the privatisation of Medicare – before it’s too late.

The case against Roz is a case against all workers and activists. Roz is facing a serious misconduct charge and has been suspended for stating a political belief. La Trobe University management are participating in a witch hunt driven by the Murdoch Press and right wing bigots. We need to defend Roz's job and the rights of any worker in any workplace to express political beliefs.

In 2015, the NUS Women’s Department ran the 'Talk About It’ survey, which found that over 72% of women at university experience some form of sexual harassment, assault or violence while studying, over 14% saying that they had experienced rape or attempted rape, and over 15% saying that they been physically hurt by another individual. In the survey, students were also asked whether they reported the incident, and the majority said that they didn’t because they did not know about it, or because they didn’t think it was worth it; and perhaps even more alarmingly, three quarters of those that did report the incident to their university or to the police, said that little or nothing was done about it. “I was ignored, told I was simply drunk and it wasn't worth investigating” (University of NSW, 20 year old) In order to address these alarming rates of violence against women at university, the National Union of Students (NUS) has been working with a number of stakeholders including the team that has rolled out screenings of the well known documentary, The Hunting Ground across Australian university campuses, as well as The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), who have worked with Universities Australia (UA) to roll out a national survey which aims to gain an understanding of the prevalence of sexual assault at universities and develop recommendations to strengthen university responses. However, while all 39 Australian universities have committed to rolling out the survey, and working to make university campuses safer; they have not committed to making concrete changes to support students who are survivors of sexual violence, or to prevent incidents from occurring. In order to improve women’s safety at university, we are calling on all universities to implement the following, and use the survey results to improve support services for survivors. -adequate lighting, 24/7 security, and safe spaces for women -stand alone zero tolerance policies on sexual harassment, assault and violence, with clear repercussions for perpetrators -accessible and clear reporting processes, with effective remedies for survivors -sexual assault counsellors on every campus -mandatory consent training for all staff and students Sign the Petition. Demand Action!

This is important because every uni should have an affordable, student run where we can eat lunch or chill with our friends. We need to Save the Eagle Bar from becoming a fancy, expensive corporate function room and turn it into a fun place to drink and eat with friends.

Workers on farms across Australia are currently forced to work long hours, often 14 or 16 hours and even up to 22 hours a day. Many are paid cash payments; as low as $4 and commonly $12 or $14 an hour, while the minimum wage is $21.61. These workers pick and pack the fresh fruit and vegetables that we buy at the supermarket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NjOjNAShnQ Many producers use dodgy labour hire contractors to try and cut costs. These labour hire contractors routinely steal workers wages, provide them with substandard accommodation for exorbitant fees, and seek sexual and monetary favours for visas or preferential treatment. Workers who speak up are ignored, silenced or have their employment terminated. All this is happening while the Big Supermarkets engage in 'price wars' during the ad breaks we watch on TV. As a duopoly, Coles and Woolworths have incredible buying power. Competition among producers to supply the supermarkets is immense. Coles and Woolworths exploit their market position to demand that producers supply products at lower and lower cost. Coles and Woolworths claim their Ethical Sourcing Code of Conduct ensures that fresh food products are ethically produced. The reality facing workers on these farms proves that this is not true. When producers are confronted with the choice between complying with codes or losing a supply contract with a Big Supermarket, they choose to cut corners. Even after extreme exploitation and slave-like conditions were exposed on Four Corners in May 2015, workers are still fighting for justice on many farms around Australia. Without workers being able to actively participate in their union and speak up about conditions on farms, codes of conduct will never work. Workers who produce our fresh food are putting out a call to clean up the supply chain, a call for a Fair Food Agreement to immediately outline standard conditions and rights that workers can collectively enact.

The Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea has ruled that detaining people in Australia's abusive Manus Island camp is illegal. What does it mean? That according to PNG's own constitution the Australian government has been imprisoning people illegally for over three years in abusive conditions – and they must be freed. This is the latest blow to Australia's abusive detention regime, and together we can make it the one that topples it over, letting us build compassion and dignity in its place. The governments of Papua New Guinea and Australia are going to be deciding right now how to deal with this ruling. Legally, they might have a few options – but morally, there's only one. The camp must be closed, and everyone we illegally imprisoned brought here. And the same is true for the detention camp on Nauru. #LetThemStay showed that more people than ever supported allowing people seeking asylum already in Australia to move into our communities. Now, we must prove definitively that our shared compassion extends to those on Manus Island and Nauru. While the government is scrambling for a response to this ruling, we need to say loud and clear that the people we have imprisoned on Manus Island and Nauru should be brought here to safety, and the camps closed forever. Will you sign the petition to #BringThemHere?

200 workers die in Australia every year in avoidable accidents. Each of these deaths destroys or disrupts the lives of dozens of people, sometimes for years. Each workers' absence sends waves of grief and loss through entire communities, and leaves holes that will never be filled. The same companies responsible for these workers deaths take short cuts on safety time and again, because there is no meaningful law to deter their dangerous behaviour.

We, the undersigned teachers stand in solidarity with the family camp asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru who have been holding daily protests against their ongoing detention and offshore processing since the 20th of March. There is no prospect of safety for refugees on Nauru. The mental health crises, sexual abuse, assaults in the community, discrimination and violence at school and permanent insecurity is intolerable and unnecessary for child and adult refugees. Now it is clear that the detention of refugees on Manus Island is illegal. Amnesty International described Australia's detention camp there as “tantamount to torture”, after visiting the centre in November 2013. All asylum seekers and refugees on Manus can and must be immediately brought to Australia. The discrimination of the offshore camps is stark; while some asylum seekers have spent 1000 days in detention on Nauru without a refugee determination, others who shared the same boat journey to Australia have been living in the community in Australia for nearly three years. The cost of running the offshore prisons alone could pay for half of the $4.5 billion the Turnbull government won’t spend on the last two years of Gonski. As teachers we uphold the rights of all children to live in a safe environment, to have access to educational opportunities and not be subject to discrimination. As teachers, we embrace the opportunity to work with refugee students and colleagues, and we know that when given a proper welcome, refugees enrich school communities. We address justice and human rights in our classrooms, and we teach our students to stand up to bullying, abuse and lies.

Investigations into worker welfare (see - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-20/australian-fashion-report3a-how-do-your-favourite-retailers-ra/7342040) recently ranked Australian brands on the conditions in the factories where their products are made. Gorman products are made by Factory X, who ranked as the worst for workplace conditions. Safety, pay, hours worked, breaks and protection from danger are well below expected standards at Factory X. Their workers work long hours for low pay in terrible and dangerous conditions. We cannot be complicit in this abuse of workers rights.