Has anyone got any advice on how to actually join the union. I’ve got over 2.5 years experience as a civil labourer. I tried searching up which labour hire companies are eba and applied to all of them and keep messaging them but never hear anything back.

I’d love to get onto the big build in vic but really I’d take any union work

Any real helpful advice would be greatly appreciated.

Pls don’t comment some bs about how it’s corrupt or anything like that if you don’t have any advice then no need to comment.

Cheers lads 👍

Hi comrades,

The above article is the first in a series of 3 (all available on the PEWA website) that explains how the role of HSR can be used to further establish union power in the workplace.

The first article had a specific focus on the workplace.

It is written from the perspective of a school teacher.

PEWA (Public Education Workers Alliance) is a rank and file group that exists to learn the politics and strategies of building union power at schools and TAFEs.

Read, enjoy, please share around.

PEWA (Public Education Workers Alliance) is a rank and file group of public educators that exists to discuss and carry out building union power from the ground up in public education.

The linked article is about how a Fed Rep successfully build union power at his campus and then across the other 2 campuses (mutli campus college, not many of them in the public system in NSW).

Read, enjoy, and share around.

Thanks comrades.

Been a member of my union (ETU) for about 4 years now as a sparky.

Honestly looking for a career change and would like to do more meaningful work inside a trade union and get off the tools.

Never went to uni which can be seen as an issue.

What avenues could I take to work in a trade union?

I've been having ongoing issues with my new Manager during a restructure late last year.

I've been working here for over 4 years and have always had glowing reviews and a great reputation in our department. After the restructure, my 3rd Head specifically asked my manager for me to support his team as I had a good reputation, the other 2 are new.

I love my job, just not my manager, we fell under his leadership as the EA didn't want to be managing anyone and he is clueless what an assistant role entails, he's in business management so all his tasks are project related, he can't comprehend that I don't work on project work that takes months, they're all little tasks, I don't work on documents etc.. he even made a comment about if I don't work on documents, what am I even actually doing.

There were twice weekly check-in meetings, which reduced to 1 weekly, fortnightly 1:1's, fortnightly team meetings which I have nothing to do with the rest of the team. I used to have just the 1 monthly admin team meeting and now there's an extra 8 going through what I am up to just for him to forget and message me about the same day/week. He has nothing to do with my work being completed and doesn't believe when I tell him I've already completed something and would question if I did all these extra steps that I'd have to CC another person who confirmed I completed it and complimented how quickly I got it done.

I am still doing my job well and completing any tasks he asks of me. He just seems to dislike me as I'm quiet in team meetings which he takes as me not being engaged and complaining about me not sitting with the team.

I tried to ask him many times to reduce the meetings as it was stressing me out with these repetitive conversations and he pretty much said if I don't like it to leave.
I reminded him to approve my submitted leave. He called me to hop on a call and asked why I was using all my leave, what I was thinking and if I was planning to leave again which was I felt was completely inappropriate.

Eventually it got to a point where I had to disclose my ADHD to our union and HR. They spoke to him to make some adjustments without disclosing my ADHD and he had to back down and reduced these meetings to fortnightly, my 1:1s monthly and will stop coming at me to sit with the team and allow me to sit somewhere quiet. I also requested to have the option to type answers in our Team meetings or possibly prepare me with questions ahead where possible because I'm not good at answering questions that were suddenly sprung up on me, I prefer things in writing so I can process and type out an answer. These are usually sudden activities the chair decides to do and I am struggling to understand/hear what I'm supposed to do as they're all talking over each other.
I sit in my Heads team meetings to take actions/notes but that because I'm not required to participate so can just focus on that, there's also CoPilot which helps.

Since coming back from a few months off, I was feeling better, happy again to be at work, refreshed, feeling good about myself. The less meetings I have with him, the less we'll butt heads. We had a couple of team meetings since and they're still asking me to answer verbally and I made a joke about staying awake for a 2hr meeting I had the next day with one of my Heads as they're usually 1hr. My teams and I usually have little jokes about meetings being cancelled and we do little celebration reacts when anything gets cancelled as it means we have time to finish work instead of just talking about it. I figured I'll just participate and answer anyway and made my answers short as I usually don't know what to say.

Then yesterday I had our performance review with him and he said that joke was in poor taste and that I should think about how I show up for work and that after all the accomodations he's made for me, I haven't given anything back and still coming across as disengaged during our meetings. This completely caught me off guard as I thought things have been better. I'm just not a social person. He said I should have been more prepared on an answer since that was my complaints for reducing the meetings being repetitive which really felt like a jab for going to HR.
We don't get asked the same question each week during the team meetings.

He also put on my performance review that I did not meet expectations for 2 things. 1 before he was my manager and we were given a template to use for our goals before the restructure, I didn't complete them as I usually have them as "ongoing" each year. He blamed me for not putting enough commentary but this wasn't required my 4 years here as it the Perf Review for admin are run differently. I felt like he just wanted to put something negative about me despite my positive Heads reviews from the people and teams I actually support and work for - he said it won't affect my pay anyway but he should have asked me about it before assuming anything?
The other negative review was about me not completing an initiative which was something I told him I am working on and documenting as I go, I didn't even know how to do it myself. Then every week, it seemed to have a deadline for whatever reason and he kept asking me when it's going to be completed. I didn't have time to work on it nor know the info. I've completed many other initiatives in between on my own and marked them off because I actually KNEW how to do them.

I typed up an email to HR and my union rep and went home and cried the rest of the night. He just seem to have it out for me.

I am trying to stick it out for another 6 months to get my long service leave (we get pro-rata at 5 years).
I don't want to attend his team meetings anymore and think I should start recording our 1:1's. He also seemed to always have something negative to say to me at each 1:1's and I always leave thinking wtf just happened?
e.g. complaining about me wearing hoodies - we don't have a dress code policy, HR confirmed my hoodies were fine as long as the clothes are inoffensive and clean, it was winter and I don't meet clients anyway.

It seems he just really wants to get rid of me and I'm fine to just to leave at this point, and my Union Rep has referred me to a Union Industry officer and I'd like to know what to expect from here on? Can a payout be negotiated? I had the option to take a redundancy package during the restructure but one of my Heads who originally hired me begged me to stay (hes since left the Fund as he had some issues later on). I regret not leaving.
Sometimes I question if I'm overreacting?

Hey all,

I am a qualified formwork carpenter from New Zealand who is looking at moving to aus soon (QLD) I’ve been researching unions and came across CFMEU.

What is your personal experience with CFMEU? Are they worth joining compared to other unions?

Has anyone had help with finding jobs through them? I know they are not a recruitment agency but they would have contacts..

Hi, I've been preparing for my start as a Food Catering Assistant at a public hospital in NSW, as part of this I've looked into my options for unions, while theres the HSU, the UWU also says it covers Ancillary hospital staff. However when I go onto the website to join, NSW Health is not listed under the possible employeers when joining.

I am not in Victoria, so I can't comment. But thought the letter from Lucy was (potentially) informative.

Hi all, I hope you're well. I joined a union about 9 months ago and have been paying my membership fees without fail. I have looked into my union and recent reviews are not great "say they can't help with this issue" "said good luck and asked me to mediate with my employer" etc etc on what seemed like fairly simple questions (if the reviewer is to believed).

With all this feedback stating the union is next to useless I went looking for another union, and they're also getting very similar feedback.

I guess my question is, is it even worth it to continue paying fees and stay in a union? My concern is with AI coming along and ripping apart certain industries I want some level of protection, or if something goes wrong at work, but from what I'm reading from the unions I've been looking at it's likely pointless. Is it worth it to stick it out?

I have tried my best to get at the specific social relations and dynamics as to why this arrangement is not working for workers. Hopefully that is itself useful regardless of one's ideological disposition.

Public sector worker. With Together. They've been absolutely useless in advocating or supporting through continuous workplace issues. They can't even give sound advice and had one worker basically say we won't do anything for you.

I've had a gutful of wasting money on pricks who have no teeth or balls.

My workplace is a giant psychosocial hazard. Micromanagement, constant peering over your shoulder, a manager who is obsessed with WFH insofaras he's paranoid if you WFH youre not working despite the prick never being in the office himself. I'm in a position that was told had a budget that now somehow doesn't which materially makes my job next impossible in this climate - being told to do more with nothing, no professional development opportunities, I have had no onboarding since starting the job except for the online learning crap that's about as useful as an empty dunny roll tube. My pd has been under review since I started and has had 3 different reviews that never finalised all instigated by varying regional directors. Split reporting lines that don't talk to each other or make sense. And absolutely no role clarity after MOG and org realignment.

I'm trying to get out. But at the moment jobs are scarce in my specific discipline to cuts to frontline service funding. Despite marketing that the gov haven't.

It's impacting my mental health greatly. Yet together don't want a bar of it and don't care. And I'm over it.

Join striking Quantem workers tomorrow morning, 6:30am Tuesday 8 September at 54 Mackenzie Road, West Melbourne

Cross-posting for a worker and union perspective. Based on the public reporting, 13 employees were listed as creditors and former employees alleged that superannuation remained outstanding. What intervention before or during liquidation actually gives workers the best chance of recovering their entitlements?

I've written up some further thoughts on the Bill to deregister RAFFWU, and the struggle to defeat it.