Young, casual workers are too often exploited. This is a company wide issue impacting 100's of casuals workers, many of whom are young. This is a common story, a few weeks ago we heard a similar story from Cotton On workers and now I'm telling you about my experience at General Pants Co. Sadly young workers are missing out on the JobKeeper payment that is designed to help workers like us through this health crisis. We need this money to pay our bills. Young workers are hanging on by a thread. I'm calling on General Pants Co. to opt us into the JobKeeper wage subsidy. Please send a message to that this is not on.

Grades received in the second and third years of an Undergraduate degree are normally given double weighting meaning that students currently completing third year subjects are denied the opportunity make improvements to their WAM. Honours degrees must be completed by Semester One to be included in WAM calculations when applying for Medicine, while an ongoing Honours degree counted towards Optometry or Dentistry. As a result of the changes to WAM calculation, Honours at any stage of completion will not be included, for any of the three degrees. Additionally, changes to Honours projects mean that they do not attract sufficient credit points to be included in the University’s broader approach to WAM. Overall, these changes are manifestly unfair and disadvantage students who are able to improve their competitiveness for MDHS applications this month. The University made this decision in the absence of student representatives and has not provided a rationale for how this change benefits students, or why this decision was necessary. It is astonishing that the University of Melbourne has decided to adopt this model given that the same outcomes could have been achieved for students whose results have suffered this semester, by applying the WAM changes announced only a short time ago. Other Australian medical schools have allowed students to receive the benefits of good results in 2020, or have changed their approach since this announcement was made. We call on the University of Melbourne to rescind its decision to ensure WAMs that improve in 2020 can be used.

PLEASE SIGN MY PETITION to tell Prime Minister Scott Morrison to support local manufacturing, local jobs and a future for our kids.

Adelaide University has introduced a blanket hiring freeze. Prioritising financial interests over student and staff concerns, this freeze means no new staff recruitment except in ill-defined “exceptional cases”. Casual academics who would usually continue work in Semester Two will not be given new contracts. Adelaide University’s slash-and-burn approach means increased workloads for existing staff and amounts to a dramatic cut in staff numbers. We demand that Adelaide University overturn the staff hiring freeze!

UNSW is currently using the crisis of COVID-19 as cover to cut courses and subjects and sack staff. We have already seen the mass sacking of casual staff who have been left within a source of income. We know that UNSW management have used these cuts to casual staff to justify cutting 10% of Term 2 Arts courses. These cuts are attacks on the quality of our education and massively reduce student’s choice in their education. The recent implementation of the trimester system at UNSW has demonstrated that students’ choice was never the motivation of Ian Jacobs and UNSW management, rather they are purely motivated by generating profits from our education. Management is attempting to shift the cost of the lost revenue onto staff and students, by cutting courses and subjects, allowing for the sacking of staff and undermining of their wages, whilst continuing to charge students the same for a lower quality education.

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.

Paddington is a unique and important local community, and will be spoiled by these out-of-place, massive LED billboards. Not only that, these billboards are designed to distract drivers right before a crossing and a bend in the road on Latrobe Terrace. They are a danger to our drivers, pedestrians and cyclists and they have no place in our community. Residents were not consulted on this billboard approval - and we do not support it!

The Club’s ability to plan for its future is at stake without the certainty of a 20 year lease. Redlands Rugby League Club is a proud Club with a long history at the Pinklands Recreation Reserve and we want to protect our viability, history and heritage. Our community supports its future at the Pinklands site and our voices should be heard. The Redland City Council have approved a Redlands Coast Regional Sports Master Plan that contains the potential for our Redlands Rugby League Club to be relocated to the Master Planned Heinemann Road Mt Cotton site. This would see a potential 35% reduction in Club membership and destruction of our heritage. We are calling on our community to support our call to Redland City Council to keep the Redlands Rugby League Club at the Pinklands Recreational Reserve into the future.

Under the Liberals, our heroes get zero. This pay freeze is a slap in the face and a kick in the guts to every essential worker who has worked overtime during this pandemic to keep us all safe.

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.