"As a young person I worked in jobs where I was harassed, underpaid and shown little respect.

"Rather than put up with it or walk away, like many others, I chose to join my union to create a fairer workplace and a better community. 

"Today I see the Abbott Government trying to cut penalty rates, use more temporary overseas labour, let the big banks raid our superannuation and lock unions out of workplaces. 

"We won’t put up with that. We are going to fight for our rights."  

Meredith Hammat, Secretary, UnionsWA

The challenge to our rights is on many fronts - employers are pushing to cut penalty rates and stop unions from accessing workplaces.  Big business wants to bring in even more temporary overseas labour, big banks want to get their hands on our superannuation.

The labour movement will never be able to out-spend business and conservative politicians. But we have shown that when we are organised and disciplined to havemeaningful conversations, one to one, targeted to those in key electorates we can leverage off our greatest strength - people. That's how we defeated conservative governments in the recent Victorian and Queensland elections. 

The Fight For Our Rights Rally is a national day of actionled by the ACTU and UnionsWA. The rally will be the first of a range of strategies to defeat the Abbott Government and its big business attacks on working people - RSVP here.

Volunteering Opportunities:

Can you volunteer to help out during the rally?  Sign up here.

Leading up to the rally, UnionsWA is calling 1000 of our most active union members - can you help make some calls? Sign up for one of our two-hour call sessions below:

Call Session: Sunday 22 February - 10:30am - 12:30pm 

Call Session: Tuesday 24 February - 5:30pm - 7:30pm

Call Session: Thursday 26 February - 5:30pm - 7:30pm

The rally is the first of several campaign events for the labour movement in WA. Complete this form to stay in touch.