SDA Organiser Aleks Velanovski has been raising safety issues at Bunnings Footscray West throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. When Aleks raised the issue of customers coming into the store after being tested for COVID-19, he was told that the testing site could not be moved because Bunnings wanted it to stay. Test recipients continue to come into the store after they are tested. This incredibly dangerous behaviour puts workers’ safety at risk. It has become clear that the only solution to this problem is the complete removal of the COVID-19 testing site.

Professional Scientists Australia is petitioning the Fertility Society of Australia to put patients first. 72.5 % of fertility scientists believe that high workloads have increased the possibility of human errors occurring at work.* Women's reproductive health should be in the hands of fertility scientists who have the skills, time and knowledge to look after patients. Without a voice for fertility scientists', profits are being put ahead of workers and patient's health and families. Patients, scientists, and the public need to stand together to demand an enforceable staff to patient ratio like those seen overseas that will lead to better patient outcomes and stem the tide of staff burnout. 56.9 % of fertility scientists say that the industry’s high workloads have harmed their mental health.* If we don’t have an enforceable staff to patient ratio the fertility industry will continue to be driven by profit and workers will be unable to help people bring about their dreams of having a family. 89.4 per cent of scientists believe there should be explicit provisions for adequate staff ratios in IVF clinics.* If we stand together, we can ensure the industry is driven by best practice science, informed patients and scientists who have the time and training to look after each patient properly. *January 2020, PSA survey of fertility scientists

This Convention is ground-breaking for many reasons, including that it: • Protects against all forms of violence and harassment in the world of work, including during commuting to and from work, and through information and communications technologies; • Protects all individuals in the world of work, irrespective of their contractual status, including volunteers, trainees and apprentices, and casuals; • Recognises that family and domestic violence is a workplace issue and sets out specific measures that can be taken to protect workers; • Recognises that workers in some sectors, such as health, transport, education, retail and hospitality, or those working at night or in isolated areas, may be more exposed to violence and harassment and need special protections. Although violence and harassment in the workplace can be suffered by any worker, stereotyping and power inequalities make women much more vulnerable to it. The ACTU’s 2018 sexual harassment survey found nearly two thirds (64%) of women and more than one third (34%) of men who responded had experienced one or more forms of sexual harassment at some point in their working lives. The Sex Discrimination Commissioner supports ratification of the Convention in her report ‘Respect@Work’, which shows that our laws don’t keep workers safe. We urgently need improvements to our work health and safety law, anti-discrimination laws, and workplaces laws which make governments and employers step up and do their bit to prevent violence and harassment. Please tell the Attorney-General and Minister for Women to urgently commit to ratify C.190 to make workplaces healthy, safe and respectful for all of us.

The petition of certain citizens of the City of Kingston draws to the attention of the Kingston Council that: 1. Don Tatnell Leisure Centre was closed on the 30th of January 2020 due to serious structural issues that made the centre unsafe for use. 2. This facility was used by many of members in the Parkdale, Mordialloc and Mentone community -offering pool, spa and sauna facilities, as well as a gym with local classes and other support services. 3. Don Tatnell is walking distance from Parkdale Secondary College and St John Vianney's Primary School, and accessible to many other local primary and secondary schools in the Mordialloc-Parkdale area. 4. The centre is readily available to our local community via bus from Mordialloc Station. 5. Since its closure, Kingston Council has not committed funding to a redevelopment on its current site and has instead flagged a possible relocation. This would be a huge loss to our local community. 6. The Mayor of Kingston has stated that costs to return the ageing building to a “useable state, without any improvements in service” would incur $9 million in costs and a 10-month closure. Instead, the Mayor says the Council “will focus on developing a new, modern centre that meets the current and future needs of our community.”

A pay cut is a slap in the face to staff who have doubled or tripled their workloads to deliver online learning and services to students. The changes to redundancy packages, however, are disturbing. Job losses would become easier and cheaper to make, incentivising the University to lay off more staff. With workers already laid off in student services, libraries, schools and galleries, we cannot afford more cuts. As more of these redundancies take place, our quality of education will lessen. This would mean fewer students, less funding, and the devaluation of University of Melbourne degrees. Those who need University support the most, and benefit the most from tertiary education, would be hit the hardest. Worst of all, hundreds of thousands of workers could be left without a livelihood, all because the university refuses to dig a little deeper. With your help these jobs can be saved, but only by encouraging staff to vote No. Students and staff are counting on your support.

There is unprecedented international funding for public health programs. In countries where asbestos is still used, health infrastructure such as hospitals or clinics built to respond to the Covid 19 crisis may contain asbestos building materials. Economic stimulus around the world is injecting money into infrastructure and construction and in countries that still use asbestos this will result in a boost to the asbestos industry and a toxic health legacy for decades to come. Unless we act to win safe, sustainable and just health and economic stimulus spending then corporations and industry lobbies will take advantage of this moment to advance their own interests. The scale of funding is huge. The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and other multilateral development banks have announced tens of billions of dollars in grants and additional ‘concessional’ credit to the world’s poorest countries. To match the unprecedented responses by international organisations and governments across the world, we can take a bold step by committing that no recovery or health stimulus funds will be used to purchase asbestos building products. Join this campaign and make sure that the asbestos industry doesn’t profit from this health crisis.

Over the past decades universities have come to rely upon casual and fixed-term staff to perform essential teaching, research and service roles. At La Trobe University over 70% of staff are not on ongoing contracts. University workers on casual, sessional and fixed-term contracts are bearing the brunt of cuts universities are making in response to COVID19-related revenue deficits. On 16 April 2020 La Trobe University communicated to all staff that due to from 1 May 2020, casuals will only be retained if they are deemed “essential”. This has led to significant job losses and loss of hours for causal staff, with many more still waiting in limbo to be informed about the future of their positions. We condemn the sacking of casual staff. Casual redundancies are projected to potentially save LTU around $1 million, less than 1% of the projected revenue deficit of $120-150 million. Casual redundancies will therefore have only a marginal impact on addressing overall revenue deficit, but the loss of these positions will have a number of significant impacts including on: • the mental health & financial wellbeing of LTU casuals who have lost their jobs and who face the uncertainty of potentially losing their jobs. Many casuals will face considerable financial hardship, especially given the ineligibility of university workers to access JobKeeper. • the student experience and the quality of teaching and learning at La Trobe University, given that the loss of causal jobs necessarily will translate to larger class sizes, the cutting of subjects, especially electives and the reduction of student services; • the workload of remaining staff at La Trobe University who will invariably be asked to pick up additional work to compensate for cuts; We, the undersigned, condemn the sacking of casual staff at La Trobe University and call on La Trobe University to recognise all the work casuals do is essential and protect their hours and conditions during this difficult time. Those of us who have ongoing roles commit to not taking on work that would otherwise be allocated to casual or fixed term staff – recognising that doing so harms the quality of our teaching and/or research as well as enabling the University to take work from our most precarious colleagues.

I'm Brendan, and I'm an injured worker. After 25 years as a specialist mental health nurse, I experienced a major workplace injury in August 2018. As a mental health nurse and someone who has been injured at work, I know first hand the affects it has and I'm asking for change to support other workers who get hurt at work. For the first time in over two decades, I found myself unable to work and having to deal with the loss of identity, income and meaning that is bound up in that. At the same time, I was having to navigate the bureaucracy of Work Cover. It just doesn’t work for workers. Its primary objective is to get you back to work or off their books as soon as possible. They don’t really care what anxieties or stresses may result. Injured workers face loss of income, loss of identity and isolation - and so do their families. Health and Wellbeing plans are a necessary step to manage the increasing mental health injuries suffered by workers in this country. It was a chance conversation that I had with my union in 2019 that led to the very first Injured Workers Day taking place this year, in 2020. I spoke to my union about the stress and invisibility I felt as a newly injured worker, and how I felt the union movement needed to do more to support people like me. They agreed, and we've worked together build this new movement. Injured Workers Day has existed in Ontario, Canada since 1983, lobbying for visibility for injured workers and changes to their workers compensation scheme. They too are hosting a day of online action on Injured Workers Day, and we’ll be a part of each other’s events. In some ways, the limitations placed on us all by the coronavirus has made it easier to build international solidarity around this important issue. Injured Workers Day will take place on Monday June 1st, LIVE on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/injuredworkersday/ The event will be all about connecting with, and empowering injured workers across Australia. The first year of this new movement will be about bringing injured workers out of the shadows and enabling them to develop and lead a public conversation about what’s broken in the system, and what needs to change. I also want June 1st to be seen as an important reminder, at this time of massive change in industrial relations in Australia, that the union movement is a collective that embraces all workers- people from all backgrounds, workers who’ve been injured, and workers laid off or impacted by the coronavirus. I recognise the impact of the coronavirus on workers across Australia, both due to loss of jobs, but also the injuries faced and loss of workers' lives resulting from this pandemic. Many Australians who experience mental health issues are experiencing increasing symptoms due to the social isolation measures currently in place; and mental health workers are under increased pressure due to the high acuity of illness and limited community supports available to people. The Coronavirus pandemic forced us to adapt Injured Workers Day to a day of online action. By this time next year, my hope is that we’ll have built an organised movement with a clear set of demands, and an agenda for political change. I hope next year we’ll be able to assemble in person- in protest and in solidarity, as we chart a way forward to fix a broken system.

The TWU seeking fairness in the transport Industry. During this pandemic, if bus drivers are required to self-isolate and are not sick OR if bus drivers are affected by Covid-19 they should be entitled to the same special leave provisions extended to drivers employed by the NSW Government. All bus drivers whose employer is contracted to Transport for NSW should be treated the same and offered the same protections during this pandemic. TWU Buses – Delivering results for all bus drivers in NSW.

The COVID 19 crisis is not over, home care workers are on the frontline working in the community with vulnerable members of society. Union members have won special leave, they are starting to get the PPE they need and have access to COVID19 virus testing. However temperature testing is still missing! Contact less thermometers can make a huge difference to identifying symptoms sooner rather than later in workers and clients. To ensure adequate work health and safety standards for workers as well as continuing to stop the spread of this virus, home care workers need temperature testing thermometers now!

Everyone deserves the right to be safe at work. Every worker deserves the right to get home safely to their family at the end of the day. According to Safe Work Australia, 63 workers have died at work in 2020. From 2014 to 2018, there was an average of 56 workplace deaths in New South Wales per year. Clocking on at work should never be a death sentence. Most workplace deaths are easily preventable making these deaths even more tragic. Current laws in NSW allow employers to only get fined for the deaths of workers, even when they have been found to be negligent. By introducing industrial manslaughter as a criminal offence in NSW punishable by imprisonment, employers will be forced to take work health and safety seriously and avoid any more easily preventable workplace deaths. Victoria, Western Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland have already introduced industrial manslaughter laws and these laws have helped to ensure that workers are better protected whilst at work. It’s time for New South Wales to do the same. NSW Young Labor wants all workers in New South Wales to be safe and protected at work. No one should go to work and not come home. (Banner image via Depositphotos)

Essential workers are putting their lives at risk for all of us. So why can’t we do the right thing by them? Essential workers in NSW are being asked to work with little or no safety equipment. They come into contact with people daily, putting themselves at greater risk of contracting COVID-19. They do this to keep our state healthy, safe, moving and functioning during the coronavirus. Yet, face masks are being rationed in hospitals. Hand sanitiser is in short supply in schools and childcares centres. Others miss out entirely on health or safety equipment. Essential workers care for our elderly, nurse our infirm, produce our food and stock our supermarkets. They ensure the lights are on and water is running. They fight the virus in hospitals, and keep our state clean, safe, moving and functioning during this exhausting pandemic. The Government must step up and guarantee personal protective equipment (PPE) for all essential workers. If they aren’t safe, none of us are! PPE includes medical masks, gloves, hand sanitiser, gowns, eyewear, face shields and other items. Different essential workers will have different needs. The Government must immediately talk with workers and their representatives to find what they need. They must fund, deliver or mandate employers provide the required PPE.