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.

Virgin Airlines have gone into voluntary administration which means time is running out to save the 16,000 local jobs, spread across Australia, including in regional airports. The Morrison government is at a crossroad where it can choose to invest tax payer money in buying a stake in an Airline that will allow Australia to avoid becoming a country with one all powerful corporate airline in control of the skies or watch as 16,000 jobs are destroyed, tax payers are lumped with an $800 million bill for unpaid entitlements and our domestic tourism industry collapses as ticket prices exploded and services are cut. The foreign shareholders of Virgin Australia are all airlines. Despite the name Richard Branson’s company owns less than 10%. Around the world airlines have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and many other countries have already stepped in to save national airlines.

Pharmacy employees are on the frontline of this crisis working to keep the community healthy. This means we are more likely to encounter people who have COVID-19, we are more likely to catch COVID-19 and we are more likely to need to self-isolate on more than one occasion. Professional Pharmacists Australia has filed an application to the Fair Work Commission to have paid pandemic leave entitlements inserted into The Pharmacy Industry Award. These measures will apply to both casual and permanent staff: 1. Where a worker is required to self-isolate, or is prevented from working by government decree, they will receive two weeks paid leave per instance. 2. Where a worker is infected with COVID-19, they receive an immediate credit of 20 days personal leave to take time off. To achieve this, we need the support of the whole pharmacy community. Now is the time for us to unite, we are all in this together.

Private health operators are currently negotiating, or have already negotiated, viability guarantee agreements to assist the public sector and to ensure that workers in the private sector are gainfully employed. NSW Health workers have been guaranteed that they will not have to pay for parking in this time of crisis. The HSU Private Health Division is calling on all private health operators to ensure that free parking for all frontline health workers in this time of crisis. Workers in both private and public health are on the frontline of the fight against coronavirus and should both be afforded the same conditions. It is only fair that private health workers should not have to worry about the additional cost of parking as they work hard to save lives amidst this global pandemic. If you believe that private health workers whose employers have been financially bailed out by the State and Federal Government should not have to pay for parking, then please sign the below petition.

Aurizon Bulk provide critical services to the community by moving goods to supermarkets across Qld. Despite this, Aurizon Bulk Management are behaving like children. They seem to be trying to use the COVID-19 crisis as a means to get an advantage over their workforce. The disputes are over stable rosters, and fatigue - they should be settled right away.

AVM is a big part of the South Australian hospitality and tourism landscape. Our members at Adelaide Convention Centre, Adelaide Entertainment Centre and Coopers Stadium work daily to present and showcase the State of South Australia and everything it has to offer. These venues have skilled and dedicated staff that are crucial to the running of these venues. We cannot afford to lose the knowledge and experience of this workforce. It is crucial that the Marshall Government support workers through the impacts of COVID-19 by extending this wage subsidy to them. The Marshall Government must commit to match the funding provided by the Federal Government for the purposes of the JobKeeper Payment for employees of South Australian public corporations and statutory authorities and ensure that no worker is left behind.

Freight rail workers are keeping Australia moving during this challenging time. They are making sure necessities and raw materials continue to find their way to supermarkets, retail stores, pharmacies, petrol stations, flour mills, manufacturing plants and construction projects. Changes to working conditions affecting rostering can have significant effects on safety and fatigue levels. The other changes could drastically affect people's families with proposals for forced transfer. The Company's attacks on your conditions is creating an unhealthy and increasingly stressful working environment potentially causing employees to take the focus off COVID-19 issues! If Pacific National get away with this, it's a blank cheque for employers in the rail industry to use the current crisis as an excuse to avoid talking with workplace delegates and offcials about critical changes in the workplace.

Changes to working conditions affecting rostering can have significant effects on safety and fatigue levels. The other changes could drastically affect people's families with proposals for forced transfer. If Pacific National get away with this, it's a blank cheque for employers in the rail industry to use the current crisis as an excuse to avoid talking with workplace delegates and offcials about critical changes in the workplace.

The decision by universities such as MONASH, LATROBE, MELBOURNE and DEAKIN to defund cleaning contracts at this time has resulted in many cleaners being stood down without pay and, as many are international students, without any financial means upon which to survive. Universities receive large amounts of public money and rely on fees from international students such as those who have been stood down, this gives them a social responsibility for the conditions of these workers. Also, there is a continuing need for extra cleaning work to protect university staff from COVID-19. It is shameful that Australian Universities such as MONASH, DEAKIN and LATROBE who rely so heavily on the income they receive from international students have now left those students without any financial resources upon which to survive in this time of crisis.

Over a month ago, union delegates reached out to management in order to begin the process of establishing designated working groups and electing HSRs. Management have refused to speak to us about the formation of Designated Working Groups in order to form an Occupational Health and Safety Committee. As we have notified management on multiple occasions that Victorian safety legislation says that we have the right to elect Health and Safety Representatives (HSR’S). But, as Grant acknowledged in the workplace meeting on the 17/3/20 management have both failed to respond to our request and have outright refused us. This is a clear and very serious breach of the OHS Act which outlines in sections 43-46 that: if one or a group of employees makes a request to be represented by an HSR, then the employer has 14 days to commence the arrangements and do everything reasonable to start these negotiations within this period. In order to protect the health and safety of workers within the workplace and ensure our voices are heard, we elected several HSR’s. As democratically elected HSR’s we put together a list of OHS concerns which you can read here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yLzBD4y_8dwgMhgTSOaEoy4AYGxWN5lf3Rry-ZDijdM/edit?usp=sharing) , we sent this to management via email last week, but they have, once again, failed to respond. We are very disappointed with management's continued refusal to communicate with us and acknowledge our concerns. This shows a clear disregard for the both law and our own health and safety. They are in breach of both our Enterprise Bargaining agreement, which they agreed to follow when they signed it in 2017, and the bare minimum Victorian safety legislation. We Demand that : 1. Management recognises us as democratically elected Health and Safety Representatives and for them to communicate with us directly, both in good faith and as required to do so by law. 2. Begin the negotiation process of Designated Working Groups immediately, in order to ensure that the voices of workers are heard and our health and safety at work is upheld. 3. Uphold the the E.B.A and Victorian safety legislation, this includes reimbursing interviewers for costs associated with setting up working from home, beginning the negotiations of DWG’s and many more things which we outline our letter to management.