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.

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.

We cannot achieve a just transition to a new low-emissions economy without ensuring good union jobs in new low-emissions industries. More information is available in the report Putting the Justice in ‘Just Transition’: Tackling inequality in the new renewable economy, https://is.gd/rkLOJY

Imagine this, you work in the airport - it’s a good job, the job you used to tell people when they asked. However, the dreams of a good occupation is quickly hit down by the reality of the pay and conditions you have to deal with day in day out. Split shifts, insecure work, wages being driven down, and not enough hours working hours. That’s the reality in the airport! What’s worse is that airport management refuse to talk to (let alone address) workplace concerns - in fact, the management at the airport you primarily work from are now shutting out workers’ working under the airport roof. Yep they refuse to meet with airport workers working at the airport! These workers have asked for a meeting for months but Melbourne Airport continue to refuse. You have witnessed what the introduction of split shifts has meant that some of your co-workers have been forced to sleep at terminals or in and around tarmacs between shifts. You know that deliberate understaffing is causing injuries and poor working conditions which is resulting in a lack of experienced and trained staff members. And that’s just skimming the surface. On top of this, your wages demonstrate the harsh reality of trickle-down economics. The airports where you work in made over $2.2 billion in profits last year alone. This is the reality for airport workers at Melbourne Airport - yep, Victorian workers are facing these conditions right here in our own backyards.

Lecture attendance is crucial for university teaching. While 16 university management executives are making more than a combined $10 million and students are paying more than $50,000 for degrees, 4000 staff members are having to work 2-3 casual teaching jobs to make ends meet. This petition responds to the cessation of payment for lecture attendance in the School of Culture and Communication, but advocates for all staff and students in the Faculty of Arts. For the University of Melbourne to have a vibrant intellectual community, that community needs a place to meet and belong. The lecture theatre is one of the few fixed locations on campus where tutors carry out their work alongside lecturers and coordinators. Content isn’t merely disseminated downward from the lectern. The lecture theatre is a space where practitioners share knowledge before, during, and after the lecture itself. It is an important space for lecturers to receive feedback and contribute to ongoing discussions, and for senior tutors to mentor junior tutors. The integrity of the tutorial space is in question when lecture attendance is neither expected of tutors, nor paid. In order to appropriately model and support student engagement with course content, tutors need to attend lectures. Tutors provide the majority of face-to-face contact students have throughout their degrees. Students need assurance that the Faculty values best practice pedagogy, and that their tutors have a meaningful relationship to the campus they work on and the content they teach. We, the undersigned, petition the Faculty of Arts to recognise that staff working conditions are student learning conditions, that lecture attendance is vital pedagogical work, and that tutors must be paid for this work separately from and in addition to tutorial preparation.

"My name is Rohit Karki and I started working at Rockpool Bar & Grill in Melbourne in 2012 and I was treated like an animal. Like a slave." "Each week I did two 20-hour shifts, back to back. I’d start at 4am and work until midnight or later, without a break. Then at 4am, I’d start all over again and do another 20 hours." "There was no time to go home between shifts, so I slept on a pastry bench in the kitchen for a couple of hours." "They tampered with our timesheets, so staff had no record of all the hours we worked. I was paid about $12 per hour, while people paid hundreds of dollars a head to eat the meals I prepared." "I felt trapped. I went into a depression. It was the darkest period in my life. But eventually I complained about this wage theft and how Rockpool treated me. Then I was bullied out of my job." "In all, I have had hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from me by the Rockpool Dining Group, and I want it back." "Rockpool Dining Group has 80 venues across Australia, it turns over $400 million a year and has 2500 staff. " "I want to be them punished for how they treated me and countless other hospo workers." https://vimeo.com/368429181

The proposed redundancy of Tess comes at a time when she is more needed than ever. Recent changes, budget cuts and instability at Nura Gili Centre at the Kensington campus as well as the shockingly low employment of Indigenous (and, further CALD) staff at UNSW marks this as a part of a larger, ongoing issue at an institutional level that needs to be remedied rather than exacerbated. Diverse staff are crucial to not only the education of students but further, to their well-being. Tess remains one of the few staff members that Indigenous, CALD and other marginalised students feel they can turn to and rely on. As well as her role as a mentor, Tess is also professionally and pedagogically a boon to the institution. Her course Aboriginal Art Now has influenced countless students and has led many to pursue further and higher research - academically, curatorially and artistically - in a more considered and critically rigorous way. In addition, Aboriginal Art Now remains one of the few Indigenous art courses available at UNSW Art & Design. She has also been instrumentally involved in a vast number of exhibitions in the Indigenous arts community in the last 30 years. The volumes of academic, artistic and curatorial output of Tess evidences her prolific reach and influence in the arts sector. As Associate Professor David Garneau suggested, her contribution to the arts sector deserves an honorary doctorate. Her removal would constitute a massive loss to the UNSW community, and the wider ripple on effects of this would be unimaginable.

Australia knows the toxic legacy of asbestos all too well. Sixteen years after the ban came into force in Australia, 4,000 people die of asbestos-related diseases every year. Around the world an estimated 250,000 people die from asbestos-related diseases each year. Still today, 125 million people are exposed to asbestos in their workplace each year. What is the loophole? The Asian Development Bank’s ‘Safeguard Policy’ prohibits investments that include raw asbestos. However, this does not apply to the purchase and use of asbestos cement sheeting where the asbestos content is less than 20%, which includes almost all asbestos sheeting. This means that victims of natural disasters can be sheltered under roof sheeting contaminated by asbestos. It means that communities trying to grow their wealth and improve their welfare can be given an asbestos time-bomb in the form of asbestos sheeting. The Asia Development Bank’s current policy enables the asbestos industry in Asia to survive, despite the disastrous health impacts of asbestos. Alternatives are widely available for all asbestos-containing products, and the ADB policy must be updated to reflect this. The ADB must close the loophole! Let’s take a stand to stop asbestos everywhere! Find out more at apheda.org.au/asbestos

The high cost of flying to and from Rockhampton hurts everyone in our community. While fares can be found for under $200 for those able to book well in advance, the small number of services between Rocky and Brisbane mean there aren't enough fairly-priced seats to go around, which pushes many people onto more expensive travel classes. This is a major problem for many in our community - from locals that need to travel south for family emergencies to businesses that need to fly to Brisbane or interstate for work. It also makes it harder to attract businesses and people to our region, which hurts our local economy. While Rocky is also serviced by Virgin, which could also do more to reduce fares, Qantas is in the strong position to act, given its $1.59 billion profit. Qantas has also already moved to lower fares out of remote airports like Moranbah so we only ask they extend their focus to Rockhampton.

50 Fenner Dunlop workers have been on strike for seven days. Workers are fighting for a base wage that is a LIVING wage, so they don’t have to rely on sporadic overtime to survive. Their employer expects them to give up roster flexibility and other hard fought for conditions, just to get a decent pay rise. No one should have to work 60 hours a week just to make a living wage.