About 2 years ago, workers at the Coles Smeaton Grange warehouse were told that their workplace would be shut down by 2023 to make room for automation. The news was devastating to workers & their families who are now unsure about what the future holds. This year, United Workers Union members have been negotiating a new collective agreement with Coles. Members are fighting for: - A fair redundancy package that will compensate them for many years of hard work & recognise the difficulty in finding new work due to the pandemic; - The right to transfer to the new automated Coles warehouse without loss of wages; - Job security for long term casual workers who will otherwise walk away with nothing. During the pandemic, Coles supermarket sales have soared by 6.9% & earnings have increased by 10.7%. On top of this, the Coles CEO Steven Cain’s remuneration package increased by 28.9% to more than $7 Million dollars in 2020! Now it's time for cashed up Coles to share their profits with the workers that created them!

We all want a professional and highly skilled industry, and to achieve this we really need to fix the current funding model. Completion rates for hair styling apprenticeships are the lowest in any industry - just 30% of apprentices will complete their Cert 3. The current funding model provides significant subsidies for employers who take on apprentices - but only in the first 12 months of an apprenticeship. At a time when 140,000 apprentices have lost their jobs across Australia, the Government really should be supporting those apprentices who are still working, or who have just lost their position. The current subsidy provides no funding or support for them, and actually rewards employers who push them out, only to take on 'fresh blood'. Who are we? Hair Stylists Australia is Australia's only dedicated union servicing the hair and beauty industry. We represent hair stylists, barbers, apprentices, make-up artists, beauty therapists, and beauticians across the country. We're a small but dedicated team working to make the hair and beauty industry fair for everyone, by protecting penalty rates, campaigning for fair and equal wages + entitlements, and advocating for higher standards of training for apprentices, more respect at work, and safer workplaces

For months Pete Evans has been sharing Covid-19 conspiracy theories and pro-Donald Trump content. It's well known that Evans has been drifting further to the extreme right, and this drift was epitomised on Sunday when he shared an image implying it was normal and natural for Trump supporters to evolve into Neo-Nazis. Given Pete Evans is a vocal supporter of Donald Trump, it has to be asked, why would he believe it is natural for Trump supporters to become Neo-Nazis? The image contained a butterfly bearing the Black Sun insignia, a Nazi image that was popularised in post-Nazi Germany. It was worn by the Christchurch shooter when he open-fired on a Mosque, killing 51 people. In the lead up to Christmas, there will be a rush of people buying gifts for friends and family. We've all grabbed a cookbook from Kmart as a last minute gift for a hard to buy for family member. The community would expect that this simple act of rushed gift buying wouldn't result in them funding a Neo-Nazi conspiracy theorist.

La Trobe Uni has a moral obligation to provide good-paying jobs and a quality education to all regions. The proposed cuts will have a disproportionate impact on regional Victoria. Regional students will be missing out on an important on-campus experience compared to their metro counterparts. It is vital for a functional society that the University ensures a diverse range of education and humanities subjects are offered.

As an apprentice, I spend one day a week at TAFE and the other four days learning on the job. I can't imagine what an apprenticeship would be like without on the job training. Stripping away on the job training would be disastrous for our skilled tradespeople. We are calling on the Government to commit to keeping on the job training for all apprenticeships.

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, women are much more vulnerable to it and much more likely to experience it. These risks of violence and harassment have become more pronounced during the pandemic. Rates of domestic and family violence have spiked around the world in 2020, and large numbers of workers are being required to work from home, regardless of whether it’s a safe work environment for them. 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.

Australians deserve to have confidence in our democracy. Government has the power to make decisions in our collective interest, and to build physical and social infrastructure that benefits us all. But when billionaires can use elections to spread lies and plant seeds of division in our community to protect their own power and influence, Australians lose trust in government and in each other.

With wetter than usual conditions forecast for the coming months, Brisbane residents simply can’t afford for Adrian Schrinner and the LNP Council to continue to overlook persistent mosquito problems in our suburbs. A brief history of Adrian Schrinner and the LNP’s record when it comes to managing the mosquito population will explain why there is great concern. In 2018 The LNP sacked 12 experienced, full-time mosquito spraying staff only to be replaced by a couple of contractors. In 2019 Adrian Schrinner and his LNP team in Council underspent the mosquito spraying budget by $1.15 million. In 2020 Queensland Health figures showed that more Ross River fever cases had been recorded up to May this year than the annual totals for each of the previous four years. Faced by a looming La Nina system over the pacific, locals are fed up with program underspends on this essential Council service while they see cases of mosquito-related diseases on the rise in their communities.

In a region rife with conflicts, and now battling the health and socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19, UNRWA stands as a vital source of regional stability. UNRWA has been recognised as a major contributor in the containment of the COVID-19 virus, particularly in preventing its spread through densely populated Palestinian refugee camps in the region. Australia has a long history of support to the Palestinian people. Australian aid to UNRWA is a practical and genuine demonstration of our long-standing support for the Middle East peace process. This support provides basic services (education and health), livelihood opportunities and protection for Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Syrian, Lebanon and Jordan. We call on the Australian Government to restore funding for UNRWA and uphold its commitment to Palestinian refugees and peace in the Middle East.

The Australian Services Union represents processing and telephony employees at Serco. These employees are the backbone of the Services Australia system, and have worked tirelessly to support Australians during bushfires, Covid-19 and a major recession. These essential workers in the processing team are classified as Casual, so after years of services helping vulnerable Australians, they will be left with nothing. We need the Government to intervene and help save these jobs and help support Services Australia.

We demand this company to clean up its act. Watsons Bay Hotel charges guests more than $800 a night for their hotel rooms, while they steal wages from some of Australia’s most vulnerable workers. This exploitation must stop. We are calling on management from Watsons Bay Hotel to meet with workers and our union and explain how they’ll pay back ALL our stolen wages and treat their workers with respect. Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel is just one of nine venues owned by the Sydney Collective hospitality group, and workers say wage theft is happening across the company. We need accountability at ALL their venues, including The Imperial in Erskineville, Northies Hotel in Cronulla, The Morrison and The Republic Hotel in central Sydney, Daniel San in Manly, the Park House in Mona Vale and Balcony Oyster Bar in Byron Bay and their new venue at Circular Quay. + + + Brought to you by Hospo Voice - Your Hospitality Union. Powered by United Workers Union.

NSW Liberal Transport Minister Andrew Constance says time is up for Sydney's world-renowned Freshwater ferries – immortalised by Australian Crawl's song Reckless – that ply the Manly to Circular Quay route. The first of the four ferries is set to be removed from service next year, while the others are likely to be retired as early as 2022. Internationally recognisable, these doubled-ended “Manly ferries” are the iconic jewel in the crown for Sydney Harbour and an Australian institution. The proposed successor Emerald-class ferry will see passenger capacity reduced from 1100 passengers down to 400 passengers per trip. There is no doubt that this will have a major impact on the levels of tourism to Manly, particularly through school holidays and the warmer months. Of course, the Emerald Class will simply not be able to handle the seas across the Heads and operate to the 5m swell limit like the Freshwater-class does. To remove these vessels would be the same as pulling the Staten Island ferries out of New York, the Star Ferries out of Hong Kong or the Cable Cars out of San Francisco. All iconic in their own nature. This announcement is simply the wrong decision.