Respect the Workers! Sustain the Services! – Campaign Update

The rest of 2008 and 2009 are going to be big years for social and community services workers in Victoria and indeed around the rest of the country.  For the next few months in Victoria, the campaign team will be working on making sure every worker in this state knows about the campaign, and has been invited to join the union and get involved.  We will be working hard to ensure that we can do as many workplace meetings that we need to, to provide information to workers, and invite to them to get on board.  You can help progress the campaign by helping us to do the same. 

What can you do to help:

• Ask others in your workplace to join the Union! Sometimes people don’t join because they have never been asked to!  If you need assistance with how to approach this, talk to your regional organiser (details listed in Regional round up);
• Organise a workplace meeting for you and your colleagues, to get the full update and further information.  Contact the organiser for your region to arrange a workplace meeting today. 
• Ask your organisation to sign up to the Statement of Support.  Arrange a delegation of colleagues to talk with your management about this. 
• Distribute the information about the Campaign below and attach to others in your workplace and your networks. We need support from not just people who work in the industry, but also from clients of services, parents, carers, local Members of Parliament – anyone who cares about quality services and social inclusion.
• Raise these issues at your staff meeting, interagency or industry conferences – get people talking about how we can win better funding and improve service provision.
• Make sure you have someone from your workplace attending your local organising committee meetings, where workers are working together with others to promote the campaign.  See detail under “Regional Round Up” to find out where your closest Network is.

Other Developments

In addition, there is much work to be done on a number of fronts, some of which arise out of Premier John Brumby’s announcements which commit the Victorian Government to setting up a portable long service leave scheme for the community sector and establishing a Workforce Capability Framework to address some of the workforce issues.  Both of these announcements are a result of ASU member’s work in campaigning and making submissions and arguments to the government that workforce issues need to be addressed.  As previously reported, the devil will be in the detail for these two announcements.  The ASU has written to the relevant Ministers and Government Departments to begin discussions on the detail.  We will update members as soon as any progress or further information is available.

National Momentum builds…

In tandem with the State campaign above, there are State-based SACS campaigns in the rest of the country, and a national SACS campaign running in tandem, to make sure we get the federal situation right too. 

To check out what’s happening with the other state campaigns, go to:

http://www.asu.asn.au/sacs/campaigns.html

Two SACS division representatives from the ASU (Linda White, Assistant National Secretary and Katrine Hildyard, Assistant Secretary, SA/NT Branch) attended the 2020 Summit and participated in the social inclusion stream, putting our view forward that the Government's social inclusion agenda must also focus on the SACS sector's long term sustainability, which is linked to workforce development.

ASU Assistant National Secretary Linda White also addressed the 2008 ACOSS National Conference on April 9, 2008, about the ASU's view on the policies and practices that will need to be adopted if Australia is to become a more socially inclusive society.

Linda referred extensively to the ASU's 2007 research papers and the consultations held in the community sector about our views. Each of the 560 delegates attending received a copy of our Building Social Inclusion reports which contain our recommendations. A copy of Linda's presentation to the conference can be obtained from the ASU.

Below is a link to an article about the SACS campaign, written by the ASU in NSW on ABC online.  What follows is a blog - please have your say and forward onto your networks - I am sure that we have members in Victoria who would like to put their view forward!  There’s only a couple more days that the forum will be open for, so be quick!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/06/2236273.htm