UnionsWA has welcomed the announcement by the McGowan Government of widespread reductions in TAFE fees to support job skills training in many key areas.

UnionsWA has today released research it has undertaken with Professor Alison Preston that analyses Australian Bureau of Statistics data on duration of job search across regions within WA recently released and over the past decade. Today around 22,000 West Australians have been searching for work for more than a year. The research shows that the duration of job search has risen sharply in WA, but significantly so in Perth North West, Perth North East, Perth South East, Mandurah and the Wheatbelt regions of WA. UnionsWA has called for more to be done to support unemployed job seekers, including increasing the Newstart Allowance and a greater effort by Federal and State governments to grow local jobs.

UnionsWA has today welcomed the announcement by Premier McGowan of measures to improve work health and safety.

Following the diagnosis of silicosis affecting over a hundred workers in Queensland, the extent of this epidemic in WA will unknown until a recently announced program of workplace inspections by WorkSafe is complete. Two months ago, there were three publicly confirmed and recent diagnoses. However, sources have confirmed a further two such cases in WA. As Federal and State Government work safety representatives meet today to consider a new work heathy and safety standard for exposure to silica dust, UnionsWA has called for that standard to be set at a world best, not a mediocre level. Exposure to silica dust is commonly caused through working kitchen benchtops and in mining and studies have established a fatal link with the incidence of lung cancer, silicosis and fibrosis. The Asbestos Diseases Society of Australia has also provided comment on its health monitoring services and expertise currently available to sufferers.

UnionsWA has today commented on the decision by WA Industrial Relations Commission in the State Wage Case, which sets wages for around three hundred thousand working West Australians on the WA Minimum Wage and reliant State awards including many trainees and apprentices.

UnionsWA has commented on the release today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics of the Wage Price Index series to March 2019.

A poll of key WA marginal electorates (Swan, Pearce and Hasluck) with 1,526 respondents, has revealed that pay rises for working West Australians are either insufficient or non-existent and this will be an important issue in determining the Federal election result

UnionsWA has commented on the release today by the McGowan Government of the 2019-20 WA State Budget.

UnionsWA has today renewed calls for industrial manslaughter law reform at national and state levels as today working people and unions commemorate International Workers' Memorial Day in Perth and with voting having just begun in the 2019 federal election. 

Workers' Memorial Day will be held at 10am on Monday 29th April at Solidarity Park, corner of Parliament Place & Harvest Terrace, West Perth.