UnionsWA has welcomed the recent announcement by Federal and WA Governments that arrangements for supporting payments for those required to isolate as a result of the pandemic will protect the West Australian workforce and wider community.

UnionsWA has commented on the release today of new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on the gap in pay between women and men and highlighted the many often low paid care work undertaken by women that are vital for a strong, community-wide response to the pandemic.

UnionsWA has today commented on the release by the Australians Bureau of Statistics of data on wages and jobs in WA and nationally since the commencement of the pandemic. The figures show that Western Australia’s economic downturn has been more severe than elsewhere in Australia and that, within WA, the Inner Perth, Wheatbelt, Bunbury and outback WA have been most severely impacted. UnionsWA has called for the JobKeeper and JobSeeker payment programs to continue to a significant extent or entirely.

The Public Good is a union and community campaign led by UnionsWA and public sector unions. Our supporters come from across the WA community. The Public Good is about highlighting the prominent and positive role that the public sector workforce plays in the lives of Western Australians.

This campaign builds on the success of the Save Our Services campaign, which fought the Barnett Liberal National Government’s cuts to public services and successfully fought against privatisation. We believed that to secure better policies there needed to be a change of government at the last state election.

Government has changed and times have changed.

Our public sector ensures that people most in need can access health care, schools, public roads and transport and other services. 

The public sector serves us all, including the vulnerable in society.

Public sector workers deserve a fair go. Like all Western Australians, they need to be paid fairly so that their pay keeps up with the cost of living.

We believe privatisation undermines the quality of our public services. Privatisation leads to the loss of public sector jobs, rising costs of services, maintenance and safety concerns and a loss of future income and the capacity of our public sector.

We will always take a stand against Governments who have a privatisation agenda.

We encourage the current state Government to value our public sector workers and to invest in our public sector for the benefit of the whole community.

Meredith Hammat, Secretary UnionsWA 

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For queries please contact Rebecca Doyle at rdoyle@unionswa.com.au

To volunteer, get in touch with Rebecca Thompson at rthompson@unionswa.com.au

Website: www.thepublicgood.com.au 

UnionsWA has welcomed the release today by the WA Government of the report of the inquiry into wage theft led by Tony Beech, former Chief Commissioner of the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The report and response by the government are available online here.

UnionsWA has today welcomed the tabling in the WA Parliament by the McGowan Government of its Bill to modernise workplace health and safety law in WA.  The safety at work of almost all working people in WA, over 1.3 million people, is governed by these laws. 

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.

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

UnionsWA has today released results from a poll commissioned by the ACTU on community attitudes in WA to industrial manslaughter law reform. This poll follows the recent release by the federal government of the Boland Review Report on national work health and safety laws which has recommended industrial manslaughter law reform. The WA Government is currently considering the need for this and other work health and safety reforms in WA.