Australian Unions

Campaigns

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  Stop more changes and cuts to Medicare!

  Medical experts have already warned these changes will increase out of pocket costs – this means patients could be left paying hundreds of dollars for some common procedures and up to $10,000 for rarer conditions. The Liberal Government has already cut billions in funding for Medicare and other health programs since 2014. What’s worse is that they froze the Medicare indexation rate, which undermines bulk-billing. And they’ve already bungled the vaccine roll-out, the most important public health program in a generation. Now we need to stop the Liberal Government from wrecking Medicare.

  57,902 of 75,000 Signatures

  Created by Australian Unions
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  Don’t let the Morrison Government Ruin our Retirement

  For years the Liberal Government has been cosy with the banks and their super funds. Scott Morrison voted against a Banking Royal Commission 26 times. But when we finally got one, it showed the truth: bank-owned corporate super funds gouge the life savings of working people to line their executives’ pockets. They charged fees to the dead, duped people into whittling away their life savings, and broke the law thousands of times. Now, the Morrison Government has just passed new super laws that will leave many workers and their families significantly worse off in retirement. The proposals are called Your Future, Your Super. We’re calling it Your Future, Bank Super. Because these laws are designed to funnel as much money as possible to corporate bank-aligned super funds. The laws will: - Pin three million workers to dud funds, potentially for life - Make it harder for workers in high-risk industries to get adequate insurance - Exclude a whole bunch of poor performing corporate products from performance testing, and - Put profits paid out to bank shareholders on the same level as your financial interests. In effect, these laws will be a free-kick to the banks. Let the Morrison Government know that they will not get away with this attack on your retirement.

  30,986 of 35,000 Signatures

  Created by Australian Unions
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  Coronavirus: Guarantee Paid Special Leave For All Workers

  As Australians, we stick together with our mates – we don’t leave people behind. But there are 3.3 million Australian workers with no access to paid leave – this represents 32% of all working people. If these workers become ill they will either attend work sick or potentially be subject to self-isolation quarantine at home without means to pay their bills. We can't wait - people are already being forced to go into quarantine and losing income. Many workers are also being forced to use their leave and some are even being stood down without pay. We are demanding that the Morrison Government guarantee two weeks paid special leave for all workers. Sign this petition to demand access to two weeks paid special leave for all workers affected by Coronavirus (COVID-19).

  116,099 of 150,000 Signatures

  Created by Australian Unions
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  Weekend workers don't deserve a pay cut - protect our penalty rates

  As a hospitality worker, I work when most people are enjoying time off with family and friends. My weekend penalty rates make up for this. And they put food on my table and a roof over my head. Retail, fast food and hospitality workers are already some of the lowest paid people in Australia. We cannot afford this cut to our wages. Tell the Prime Minister, Australian workers deserve a pay rise, not a pay cut. He needs to act now to protect our pay.

  70,255 of 75,000 Signatures

  Created by Erin, weekend worker
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  We need a safe climate with secure union jobs

  Workers are stepping up to face the climate crisis by reducing emissions in our workplaces and communities, creating new clean energy industries, responding on the frontlines to extreme weather like bushfires, heatwaves and floods; and dealing with the impact that climate change is having on every job. But under the Morrison Government, Australia is being left behind. Without a genuine plan to cut pollution and ensure a just transition for workers and communities in the shift to net zero emissions, Australia will be left behind as the world embraces new clean technologies and industries. Australia led the world in responding to COVID. Now we need to flatten the curve on greenhouse pollution, and rebuild better with investments in new low carbon industries and quality, secure union jobs. Prime Minister, please act now by getting serious about responding to the climate crisis, embracing clean energy jobs and supporting workers and communities in the shift to net zero emissions.

  8,926 of 9,000 Signatures

  Created by Australian Unions
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  Coronavirus - A guaranteed wage subsidy to save jobs now!

  Working Australians have been dealt a body blow by the impact of the coronavirus. Millions of workers are facing the very real prospect of losing their job and they need the government to act. Sign our petition and tell the Morrison government it must provide a guaranteed wage subsidy to all working people immediately to save jobs. Other countries' governments have already done this. The UK government is guaranteeing 80% of people's wages. It’s time Scott Morrison gave Australian workers the same assurance that they are not being abandoned. Scott Morrison has announced a wage subsidy for Australian workers, but it excludes 500,000 casuals and over 1 million temporary visa holders. Let the Prime Minister know that it is only by keeping people in jobs that the future of Australian workers, their families and their communities can be secured. If we guarantee wages now we will keep people in jobs and out of welfare. Sign the petition for a guaranteed wage subsidy and let Scott Morrison know Australian workers need a government that puts the well-being of workers first.

  44,375 of 45,000 Signatures

  Created by Australian Unions
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  Coronavirus: Extend JobKeeper and JobSeeker

  This crisis isn’t over. Far from it. The JobKeeper end date is fast approaching and working people are facing the prospect of the economic trapdoor opening up underneath them as more companies and organisations start to announce job losses in anticipation of JobKeeper being switched off in March. JobKeeper needs to be extended and expanded to cover workers in higher education, early childhood education, the arts, aviation, casuals who might have less than 12 months service, visa workers who were invited here and are now trapped. By signing our petition, you can let the government know that if we are all in this together as they claim, it needs to provide JobKeeper to all those that need. The old JobSeeker rate was a poverty trap and Australian’s have always deserved more than $40 a day. It was never enough to live and there can be no going back to that kind of starvation payment. With nearly 1 million people unemployed, but the reality that there is almost an additional 700,000 who’ve given up looking for work because there are no jobs, ordinary Australians are dealing with both economic hardship and a loss of faith in the future. JobSeeker should be permanently lifted because it provides people with a chance to pay their bills, put food on the table and not struggle trapped in poverty. We need to give all Australian a sense of hope and security. Without extending these supports millions of Australians will suffer as the economy falls over the March cliff, jobs are destroyed and incomes are thrown back to poverty levels. You can do your bit by signing this petition and demanding that Scott Morrison leaves no worker to navigate this crisis alone.

  21,246 of 25,000 Signatures
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  The Morrison government must save 16,000 local jobs and take a stake in Virgin

  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.

  11,666 of 15,000 Signatures

  Created by Australian Unions
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  Stop Morrison’s union-busting bill

  Less than a week after being rejected in the Senate Scott Morrison has delivered on his promise to big business and put his union-busting bill through the House of Representatives again. But before it can be law it must go to the senate. The senate rejected union busting only a week before Morrison has rushed the same law back into parliament. These union-busting laws will hurt working people in this country. These laws will make it harder to win pay rises, harder to keep workplaces safe and will make it easier for bad bosses to do the wrong thing. These laws continue a double standard that targets unions with deregistration over minor errors, like filing paperwork late, yet the big banks continue to get away with outrageous, ongoing criminal behaviour. Morrison’s laws are union-busting pure and simple. Morrison has no plan to stop the criminality of the big banks, no plan to end wage theft and has one set of rules for banks and big business and another for working people and unions.

  21,218 of 25,000 Signatures

  Created by Australian Unions
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  For the workers: Support our hidden heroes

  The coronavirus pandemic is affecting everyone, and it is working people who are carrying our community through this crisis.  But it also working people that have borne much of the worst impacts of the crisis: wrecked jobs, reduced hours of work, severe income cuts, being forced to access superannuation and being put at risk of exposure to the virus. Tens of thousands of working people have put their bodies and lives on the line to get the entire Australian community through the pandemic. Working people are the hidden heroes of the pandemic and we must support them.

  35 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Australian Unions