Coliban Water workers are the engineers, hydrologists, scientists and managers who keep safe, reliable water flowing to 180,000 people across the Bendigo and Castlemaine region. They’re delivering a $500 million infrastructure program to upgrade water and sewer systems that communities depend on every day. For five years, these regional professionals have watched their real wages go backwards while Coliban charges its customers the highest water prices in Victoria. Bills went up 4.5% last year alone, but the workers who keep the system running were offered just 2% annual increases. In real terms, that’s a pay cut of more than 10%. Now, instead of bargaining in good faith, this state-owned corporation is trying to bully workers out of exercising their legal right to take protected action. Threatening to stand workers down for setting an email auto-reply is not the behaviour of a responsible public employer. It’s union-busting, and it’s happening in the Premier’s own backyard.

We all deserve a good life – a roof over our head, food on the table, fuel in our cars, and the security of knowing our pay will cover the basics.   But for too many of us, that’s no longer the reality.  Instead of relief, we are being squeezed from every direction.  The Reserve Bank keeps raising interest rates, fuel prices are soaring, and big business is pocketing millions – while we are told to tighten our belts.  Workers didn’t cause the cost-of-living crisis – but we’re being asked to pay for it.  In the ASU’s Wages and Cost of Living Survey, almost 80% of workers surveyed have gone without meals because they couldn’t afford it. This is not ok.  Wages aren’t keeping up while corporate profits keep climbing.  When rent jumps, when groceries soar, when bills skyrocket – there’s only one solution that works: a real pay rise.  And pay rises don’t happen by accident. They happen when we come together and demand better. Pay rises start with us.  That’s why ASU members are campaigning for a 5% pay rise in this year’s Annual Wage Review – a rise that reflects the real cost of living and doesn’t leave workers behind.  The ASU is your voice for better pay - but the strongest voice is a united one. Join the campaign to win the wage increase you deserve. Become an Australian Services Union member today. 

Without the work Sustainability Victoria does, we won’t reach Net Zero. Abolishing Sustainability Victoria is a betrayal of the state government's own commitments to the community and climate. This is happening during a time when other key environmental agencies are being gutted, diminishing Victoria’s capacity to address biodiversity decline, waste reduction and climate action. To reach the Victorian Government’s target of Net Zero by 2045, Victoria needs to reduce emissions and waste– 36% of Victoria's emissions come from the extraction and use of manufactured goods and material products. A circular economy is integral to ensure the long-term repurposing, reusing and recycling of our resources. Why Should We Save It? • Sustainability Victoria is Independently Governed. For over 20 years, Sustainability Victoria has delivered the programs and expertise for Victoria to design out waste, under the guidance of an independent board and CEO. Without this independence, Victoria loses one of the only institutions that has a mandate to pursue sustainability outside of the electoral cycle. • Sustainability Victoria has its Own Funding Model. It is funded by the Municipal and Industrial Waste Levy (MILL), collected through council rates; by law, this levy must go to sustainability initiatives like waste reduction. If unspent, this fund sits idle, used by the government to prop up its budget bottom line. The fund, meant for agencies like Sustainability Victoria, is on track to have $700 million sitting idle by July 2026. • Sustainability Victoria benefits climate, community and the economy. By working with industry, schools, local governments and communities, SV provides evidence-based solutions that allow Victoria to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Modelling shows a circular economy, advanced by Sustainability Victoria’s team of experts, could increase Australia’s GDP by $26 billion in the next 10 years and add 150,000 new jobs to the Australian market by 2048. Sign our petition and send a clear message to the Government:  We cannot afford to go backwards. We cannot afford to lose Sustainability Victoria.

Local Government services in Victoria are in crisis because of chronic underfunding by the Allan Labor Government. Council workers across metropolitan Melbourne are under constant threat of outsourcing and have seen their real wages cut by between 7-12%. High rates of vacancies and turnover are endemic across the sector, and workers are more exposed than ever to occupational violence and unsustainable workloads.   This also means lower quality services for the broader community. It means understaffed libraries. It means graffiti being left up for weeks and subcontracted street sweepers racing through too many streets and leaving rubbish behind. It means youth workers preventing crime by providing vital early intervention services losing their jobs.   Our communities can’t afford a race to the bottom.

Our workplace laws need to catch up to the reality we're living and working in 2026. If you support changes to protect our work from the damaging new aspects of AI and workplace surveillance, think long service leave should follow you and not your boss, and want those who can to be able to work from home, sign this pledge.

The Victorian Catholic Education Authority (VCEA) is seeking to ignore the nearly 19,000 staff who signed a Statement of Support for fair bargaining last year – a clear majority of the 35,000 staff that the VCEA has claimed work in Victorian Catholic education. No good explanation has been provided for this anti-worker stance, and this continued denial of our basic rights is causing deep concern amongst staff in Catholic schools right across the state. As educators, we don’t want to have to take industrial action – but as workers, we know that the internationally-recognised right to do so is what gives us power at the bargaining table, and that without this right we are negotiating with one hand tied behind our back.  

A lot of Victorians in all sorts of industries can’t work from home - but our whole community wins when those who can work from home are given the option. It means fewer cars stuck in peak hour traffic and less congestion on public transport. Local small businesses benefiting from increased lunchtime demand. Families with someone around to pick up the kids up after school. That’s why I support moves by the Victorian Government to legislate a right to work from home for two days per week for people who are reasonably able to do so. I want all politicians, and all Victorians, to get behind this simple proposal that will improve the lives of millions of Victorians and their families.

When injured workers go through the WorkCover system, they can face disbelief, delays, intrusive surveillance, and adversarial processes when they are at their most vulnerable. Oftentimes, instead of being supported to recover and return to work safely, injured workers are forced to fight for treatment, income, and dignity. A meaningful Code of Injured Workers’ Rights would set clear, enforceable standards, ensuring workers are treated with fairness and respect, supported in recovery, and not retraumatised by the WorkCover system itself. 

Local government workers deliver essential services our communities rely on every day. But councils are increasingly replacing secure, ongoing jobs with labour hire and rolling fixed term contracts. In some councils, labour hire workers now make up almost one in ten staff, often doing the same work as directly employed council workers but for less pay and fewer conditions. At one Council, ongoing employees are working side-by-side with labour hire workers on $18 less an hour. At the same time, many workers have been trapped on rolling fixed term contracts for years - in some cases for more than 10 years - creating constant uncertainty and undermining their ability to build careers, support their families, and invest in their workplaces. Insecure work doesn’t just hurt workers, it hurts communities. High turnover and lost experience weaken local services and make it harder for councils to build strong connections with the people they serve. Communities deserve stable councils staffed by workers who are supported, trained, and able to build long-term knowledge of their local areas.

Hate doesn't deserve a big screen!  The One-Nation-endorsed 'A Super Progressive Movie' presents itself as an edgy satire whilst really trafficking in hate.  As the Australian Classification Board describes, "The entire film is full of crude humour, which trivialises the fight for equality and issues, including the rights of minority groups and those facing discrimination, including First Nations people, the LGBTQIA+ community, differently abled people, etc." Screenings previously scheduled at Parliament House have already been cancelled on the grounds that "events held at Australian Parliament House are accepted, among other requirements, of not being likely to cause offence to any part of the Australian community." Workers are entitled to a safe workplace. Hosting this film and the attendant rally of 700+ One Nation supporters will threaten that. Stand up for workers at Village Cinemas, patrons of Crown Casino and the entire affected community that Pauline Hanson's campaign of hate and division will target. Come out to the Refugee Action Collective's rally this Thursday at 5:30pm, Jeff's Shed on Clarendon St (opposite Crown Casino) 

Myuna workers are local people with mortgages, children in local schools, and deep ties to the Lake Macquarie community. The mine supports not just 300 direct jobs, but thousands of others including contractors, transport workers, small businesses, and services that rely on stable, well-paid work in the region. When a major employer like Myuna closes, the damage does not stop at the gate. It flows through families, communities, and the local economy.  Workers are being asked to live with uncertainty while Origin continues to profit from running Eraring, a power station that was once publicly owned and now supplies essential electricity to NSW. A just transition means planning, certainty, and fairness, not silence and delay. Communities like ours deserve better.

Wages in the community services sector have not kept up with the value or complexity of our work. Then, if it wasn't bad enough, in 2025, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) proposed to change the classification structure in the SCHADS Award. The FWC proposed a 9-level classification structure modelled on the Aged Care Award. These changes could have caused 73% of workers to face weekly pay cuts ranging from $179 to $930 across various sector roles. There are up to 130,000 workers employed under the SCHADS Award. 46% of those workers faced losing over $200 per week. According to ASU surveys, 40-50% of workers would be forced to leave the sector due to financial stress if the FWC proposal was adopted. So, we fought back. We held members meetings, site visits, stunts and rallies! We gained media attention right across the country and grew significantly as a union with thousands of workers getting engaged in the campaign right across the nation. The FWC will likely make its final decision in around March. Any FWC decision will not be implemented immediately. So, in the meantime, we are running our campaign for pay increases for the community services sector.  We know that when we fight, we win. We’ve done it before. We won pay increases of 23% to 45% to the minimum wages in 2012. Let’s stand together in 2026 and show everyone why we must be valued!