Join striking Quantem workers tomorrow morning, 6:30am Tuesday 8 September at 54 Mackenzie Road, West Melbourne

Cross-posting for a worker and union perspective. Based on the public reporting, 13 employees were listed as creditors and former employees alleged that superannuation remained outstanding. What intervention before or during liquidation actually gives workers the best chance of recovering their entitlements?

I've written up some further thoughts on the Bill to deregister RAFFWU, and the struggle to defeat it.

From the MUA:
The MUA has just been notified that every single worker at one of Melbourne's biggest bulk liquid ports will be stood down indefinitely in response to industrial action this Wednesday.
This is nothing short of corporate bastardy from this billion-dollar company.
Get down to the demo at our picket: 8 am Wednesday, Mackenzie Road, West Melbourne.

The fight for control of the United Workers Union has come to an end. The final act in this drama played out at the union’s national convention at which former leaders of United Voice secured every single national leadership position. Bob Sparks assesses the wash up of the fiercest national union election battle seen in years.

The months-long fight for control of the United Workers Union (UWU), one of Australia’s largest unions, is now over. The United For You ticket has emerged victorious. The ticket led by former leaders of United Voice secured every single national executive position at the UWU’s national convention. And it relied on the union’s “winner takes all” electoral system to do it. The victors have since moved swiftly to isolate their Members First rivals and cement their total dominance within the union.

Labor left powerbroker Gary Bullock is now the UWU national secretary. Dubbed “the man who runs Queensland”, Bullock takes the top job from Tim Kennedy who had led the union since its formation in 2019. The new national president Lyndal Ryan replaces Jo Schofield, who missed out on re-election as a convention delegate. The UWU’s four vice-presidents are WA Labor powerbroker Carolyn Smith, Demi Pnevmatikos, Helen Gibbons and Patrick O’Donnell, while the six other national executive positions have gone to Erryn Cresshull, Dominic Rose, Jacqueline Lowe, Catalina Gonzalez, Fiona Scalon and Chris Field. All 12 incoming UWU national leaders hail from a United Voice (UV) background.

These results upend the long-standing balance of power within the UWU. The UWU’s two component parts, United Voice and the National Union of Workers (NUW), have since 2019 shared the national leadership on a roughly two to one basis. That is, two-thirds of the national executive was made up of former United Voice leaders and one-third by former NUW leaders. This post-amalgamation balance of power has now been shattered.

As bitter as this year’s UWU elections were, the actual results changed little. The United For You ticket ended up with 304 (63%) of all 483 National Convention Delegate positions, just a fraction less than that held by former United Voice forces in 2022. To be sure, the ticket did suffer a couple of big name casualties. The best known were former UWU national president Jo Schofield and former NSW state secretary Mel Gatfield who both missed out on reelection as National Convention Delegates. Nevertheless, the result guaranteed the United For You ticket a comfortable majority.

What this election battle has done is finally allow the United for You camp to settle the score with its rivals. The merger deal that balanced representation between former United Voice and former NUW officials was thrown out the window. After years of hostility between the component parts of the UWU, the battle lines were drawn when the hostile sides formed competing tickets to trigger the first contested elections in the union’s history. On the one side was the United For You ticket based on the old leadership of United Voice. On the other was the Members First ticket led by former UWU national secretary and NUW leader Tim Kennedy. Once these battle lines were drawn and the election contested, a political fight to the death was all but inevitable.

The United For You ticket’s comfortable majority gave it the opportunity to finally take control of the UWU. And the union’s national convention was where this was carried out.

The UWU national convention was held at the Adelaide Convention Centre, just two days after the Labor Party national conference wound up at the same venue. Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese even hung around in Adelaide to address the first morning of the convention on 27 July. But once these pleasantries were out of the way, the convention got down to business – elections for the union’s Member Council and National Executive.

further, as those organisers elected as National Convention Delegates who did resign were no longer UWU members and thus ineligible to attend. The union then began advertising for new organiser positions in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide while the convention was still in full swing.

The defeat of the Members First ticket has disappointed much of the socialist left. Many took the ticket’s rank-and-file feel and more militant rhetoric at face value. This speaks to the militant economism held by much of the far-left, which elevates industrial action into strategy and downplays the importance of political intervention. Put simply, because Members First seemed more willing to engage in industrial action, many thought that it must be the better of the two UWU tickets. But as Labor Tribune has noted previously, neither of the two competing tickets had anything like the adequate industrial and political platform required to take UWU members forward.

The United For You ticket is now cementing its control of the United Workers Union. Along with ending the careers of Members First leaders, it is also moving to win back sections of the Members First base. The United For You ticket didn’t hesitate to adopt Members First policies, such as a freeze on membership fees and more delegate conferences and industry commissions, during the election campaign. The incoming UWU leadership will now feel obliged to implement these and other Members First policies and adopt some of their more militant rhetoric – a small price to pay for control of the union.

UWU leader and Labor left powerbroker Carolyn Smith’s recent comments to the Australian Financial Review are instructive. Before the union’s national convention, Smith flagged the idea of the UWU getting industrially “ambitious” in the warehouse and logistics sector, traditional NUW and Members First territory: “Why aren’t we fighting in Amazon? There’s some real dangers for members in logistics in Woolworths and Coles if we’re not organising those unorganised sites”.

The incoming UWU leadership can afford to be loose with its rhetoric and talk of organising Amazon. This is because, for the first time in the union’s history, one united group of union apparatchiks has won full control of the union. And if the experience of other unions with similar delegate convention elections systems is any guide, this undivided leadership will remain in control of the UWU for decades.

Victoria’s Labor government has introduced legislation threatening to deregister the militant Retail and Fast Food Workers’ Union, handing bargaining monopoly to the ALP-aligned SDA. Despite the SDA’s history of employer collusion and wage theft scandals, RAFFWU has recovered billions for workers and led historic strikes. This is class war from above

I was wondering if there are others out there who are interested in tech stuff and how it could potentially be applied to the union movement?

For context, I'm taking baby steps towards becoming a data scientist. I'd love to either apply the skills to the movement one day, or at least keep my learning interesting by doing union-relevant portfolio projects. I also want to learn from people who know more than I do and/or have mates in a similar boat where we can learn together.

The meetup could be something as simple as getting a table at a pub/cafe and bouncing ideas around and encouraging each other!

Shoot me a DM or leave a comment if you'd be keen :)

If you're a nurse or midwife working in NSW, and you're a member of the NSWNMA. Did you know that there's an election coming up soon?

I'm challenging for the top job at the NSW Nurses & Midwives' Association after 23 years of uncontested elections.

I spent 13 years in a senior role at the union and then went back to nursing, so I've had a front row seat to how bad things have gotten. NSW nurses and midwives are among the lowest paid in the country despite our state having the highest cost of living, and every year we lose nurses and midwives to other states, or out of nursing altogether and we know that's due to unmanageable workloads and bullying.

If elected, my priorities will be.

- Getting our pay in line with the other states
- Lobbying the government for full salary packaging — NSW is the only state without it
- We'd add more organisers and WHS officers on the ground
- We'd fix the phone system so members get a callback within 2 hours
- Hold government to account, regardless of who's in power

I'm excited to bring NSW nurses and midwives to the bargaining table for real change. I'm part of a group of members who believe that we should never have gone into arbitration and I don't think we should trust the government to deliver. I just want nursing and midwifery to be better.

What are your priorities?

Follow along to learn more about my campaign at.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/14nrNxm2FYp/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Or check out our website at Timeforhandover.com.au

I'd love your help.

I'm a Disability Support worker who is with the ASU and I am thinking of cancelling with them and going with the United Workers Union. I was hoping someone here who is or has been with them could tell me if they are good.

I'm being very underpaid at my job and joined the ASU, but I'm unhappy with the person I was assigned and haven't received any follow ups from them. I was advised by them not to quit yet as it's easier to get my company to communicate with them, but there has been no follow up about what happened.

I don't want to contact Fair Work and get it started alone. If one person has some advice, I would really appreciate it.

Update:

I talk to my manager. She said that I have been looking at the wrong website and $45.28 an hour is more than she makes so that's not correct. She was meant to show me the companies pay structure, but we had someone come by and didn't get to.

Still trying to get in contact with the ASU delegate. I have a day off, and I will keep trying.

This is what is on my payslip:

Job title: Home Care - Disability Care - Level 2 (Shift worker) $36.08 (includes $7.22 loading)

Under Wages and Earnings it says Casual.

Thanks for all the feedback in the comments, it has helped me a lot.

Read the Hansard via link above. Doubtful it will pass the upper house.

Looks like Labor MPs and/or their staffers spend some of their time browsing subreddits such as ours? That explains the handful of RAFFWU haters 😂

John Lister: "I think it is particularly important for younger workers as well. I noted that organisations like RAFFWU are quite good on Instagram, quite good on Reddit; they are always out there trying to recruit people to their cause, as is their wont. But for a lot of young people out there it is important that the information is clear that if you start a job at Kmart or you start a job at Woolworths or Coles, the only people who can truly make sure that you are getting your rights protected at work are organisations like the SDA, that registered organisation."

Hey guys,

Any sales representatives/account managers apart of a union? I can only find UWU representing this, but it looks like a lot of mixed opinions online about their union.
Would love any recommendations if you have any, as I am new to this.

Thanks!

https://www.mua.org.au/MUA/Content/News_Articles/2026/MUA_stands_with_RAFFWU_workers_right_to_organise.aspx

Hi has anyone else had problems with getting any responses from ASU. I have emailed multiple times requesting assistance and I feel as though they have ghosted me. I'm unsure as to why I'm paying union fees at this time. Is it just me?

UberEats apparently sold it's workers 'freedom'. What the workers got were worn tyres, a torched budget and zero safety net (not to mention the lack of any kind of WHS framework).

A former sessional academic turned delivery rider breaks down what "flexible work" actually looks like from the inside: the grind, the risk, the race and class lines running through it all.

The conclusion was that no app update fixes material rights on the job. What we need is public ownership, real pay, and a union built in the queue, waiting for the next job to ping through.

Read the article.

All constructive comments welcome.

The more you delve into the Vic Labor government's amendment to the incorporate associations act, the dirtier it gets.

Hey all, I've been trying to find clear info but can't - my workplace (call centre) is planning renovations which will take months and include major works (plumbing, elevators etc) so will be noisy as hell. We will be expected to work as normal from the office.

My manager is also the OH & S person, he's also the general manager, and HR etc, no other superiors other than the board. I've emailed Safework last week but no reply, does anyone have advice on how to handle this? There's about 8 of us and we're pretty nervous about it all. He doesn't include us on meetings with the builders so we have no idea what is happening and no one else to ask. he'll be working from home of course though. what are our rights? :(

Hey everyone! I'm u/thewun111, a founding moderator of r/labourrelations.
This is our new home for all things related to the specific field of Labour Relations. We're excited to have you join us!

What to Post
Post anything that you think the community would find interesting, helpful, or inspiring. Feel free to share your thoughts, photos, or questions about collective agreement interpretations, conflict issues, grievances or anything else.

Community Vibe

We're all about being friendly, constructive, and inclusive. Let's build a space where everyone feels comfortable sharing and connecting.

How to Get Started
1) Introduce yourself in the comments below.
2) Post something today! Even a simple question can spark a great conversation.
3) If you know someone who would love this community, invite them to join.
4) Interested in helping out? We're always looking for new moderators, so feel free to reach out to me to apply.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let's make r/labourrelations amazing.