When the virus hit, public sector workers had to work harder than ever before - often they faced a greater risk of coronavirus by going into work at hospitals or cleaning public spaces and buildings around our state. They did to make us all safe and keep society functioning. Without them, Australia wouldn’t be getting through this crisis better than nearly all other countries. But now the NSW Government, under Premier Gladys Berejiklian, wants to cut their pay. Why? Because they're seen as an easy target - they don't have the wealth or power of big business, CEOs and banks that should be forced to pay their fair share of tax. What's worse, the Premier has already awarded pay rises to Government CEOs and Heads of Departments - one Government CEO even got a $65,500 pay rise! But it gets worse for all us. When the lockdowns and social distancing began, people stopped spending money in their communities and shops. This turned into an economic crisis - people were queuing outside Centrelink for support. The Government employs 1 in 10 people in NSW and could increase the pay of its workers who spend in our communities and shops - with the lockdowns slowly easing, now is the perfect time! If they cut workers pay this will prolong the economic downturn for all of us. Add your name to say this is wrong!

The motive is clear; university managements around the country want to shift the burden of a loss of revenue onto staff and students. They want to cut costs and shore up their profits, and to do that they will cut courses, sack staff, undermine their wages and conditions and charge students the same for a lower quality of education. Schmidt has offered to take a pay cut himself, but this is token given he will still be paid hundreds of thousands per annum. Management making token sacrifices while making workers and students pay is no justification for cuts! We, the undersigned, are opposed to any measures that push the costs for this crisis onto staff and students. We believe that staff and students should be the people who determine what their learning and work environments look like, not university management. The government should be made to pay for the impacts of this crisis on universities, not staff and students.

The National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) has applied to vary the EE&C Award 2010. Some of these proposals are quite simply an attempt to reduce the wages of electrical workers under the guise of the COVID-19 pandemic. They include – - Abolishing penalty rates on Saturdays. - Abolishing penalty rates on Sundays - Expanding ordinary hours of work from the current 6am-6pm Mon-Fri, to 5am-7pm Mon-Sun - Allowing shut-downs (not just Xmas) at employer’s discretion with no notice. We the undersigned electrical workers in Australia oppose these proposed changes as it will make companies covered by enterprise agreements, with penalty rates included, uncompetitive and force a further wage race to the bottom. It will also be detrimental to electrical apprentices, the majority of whom are paid under the EE&C Award. We urge our employers to contact NECA informing them of their opposition too.

School cleaners don’t have enough time to do their job because of cuts to cleaning hours by the NSW Government. Cleaners want to ensure your kids are safe but simply don’t have enough time to do the job they want to do. The NSW Government implemented "enhanced cleaning" in March. This extra cleaning has now been extended until the end of Term 3, contingent on "health advice". It could be pulled at any time and is essential to keeping schools safe and clean, regardless of COVID-19. Cleaners believe that enhanced cleaning is what's needed to keep the school community safe all the time. Enhanced cleaning is the bare minimum, not an extra. The NSW Government needs to maintain current cleaning levels permanently.

Maroondah Council stood down workers without consultation with the ASU and in some cases, no consultation with the employees affected. Those impacted have provided a list of meaningful work tasks that could be performed, but disappointingly, these have been rejected by Maroondah Council management, prolonging the time these employees remain unsupported. The vast majority of Local Authorities have supported their staff by redeploying them into tasks similar to those presented to Maroondah Council. We urge Maroondah council not to abandon those who provide support, education and entertainment to the community any further.

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.

I am the artist known as Toni Childs. I am an Emmy Winner and three-time Grammy-nominated recording artist who lives in Australia. This is a shout out to all the performing artists and musicians affected by this lockdown. And... this is a shout out to all those who want to lend their voice in support of performing artists receiving financial support during this challenging time. I was inspired to create this petition after watching the video below of Tony Burke asking Josh Frydenberg why a young part-time worker who works only one day week is entitled to JobKeeper, and performing artists are not. Ihttps://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=274953026862438 This is an opportunity to let the Australian Treasury know you need their support at this challenging time. Please sign and share this petition, and let's see if we can make some beautiful noise and get rent paid and food on the table. As an Artist, I know it can be difficult to speak up for ourselves when we are in need. I know it is for me, and it has been something that I've had to get over. We tend to be givers and it can be difficult to ask for support. If there was ever a time, this is the time. I love what we do! I love what you do and I love that what we do touches people in ways that it is impossible to put a value on. Sign and share, Peace, Love and Deep Gratitude, toni childs

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.

A leaked department letter has revealed that the Morrison government is demanding (un)employment agencies be proactive about scheduling appointments with unemployed workers — despite mutual obligations being suspended until 1 June. This has given the green light for agencies to ramp up their bullying tactics to force unemployed workers into pointless appointments and claim government commissions of up to $377 per initial appointment. The government must stop handing over billions of dollars to private corporations to punish the unemployed. The AUWU demands that this punitive system — already deemed not fit for purpose by both employers and the senate — be immediately scrapped and replaced with a genuine employment service, run by public servants, that actually helps unemployed workers through this crisis More details: https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/05/11/coronavirus-jobseeker-mutual-obligations-letter/ We know the privatised employment services system is grossly punitive. The data shows payments were suspended 2.7m times in 12 months, but only 654,000 official "demerit points" were handed out. This adds up to roughly 2 million unfair penalties being dished out to unemployed workers every year by privately owned agencies. A 75% error is a national disgrace. This unfair compliance regime has had a catastrophic impact on the lives of unemployed workers. It's a national disgrace that, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, this system continues to drive everyday Australians into poverty, homelessness, mental distress and even suicide.

On the 3rd of April, Maribyrnong Council secretly sent termination letters to 150 employees from libraries, community centres and the aquatic centre. They did this without talking to the staff, their supervisors or their union beforehand. Some staff were told they had been sacked by being asked to hand back their keys at the end of their shift. Maribyrnong Council is the only Council in Australia to sack workers. When asked for justification, they claimed that they believed it would allow the workers to access centrelink if they were sacked. Despite being informed that this is not correct, they have refused to rescind the terminations. Most of the staff who were terminated knew that they may lose hours, but the termination letter came as a cruel shock. It would cost nothing for Maribyrnong to rescind these wrongful terminations, and they should do so immediately for the well being of the community.

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.

In light of the current crisis the public health system is facing, workers volunteered to roll over their current enterprise agreement, keeping the status quo, so that everyone can focus on delivering services and keeping the community safe. Lucas and the Liberal Government have refused - in favour of attacking workers’ current conditions, including job security. We call on the Treasurer to support essential workers who have been working tirelessly during this crisis by agreeing to rollover the enterprise agreement with a wage increase. This action would provide essential public sector workers with the certainty they deserve and allow the Government to continue focussing on the health and wellbeing of South Australians during these unprecedented times. Sign the petition NOW.