Over a thousand prison officers walked off the job today and most marched on Parliament House demanding the South Australian government reverse its decision to privatise the Adelaide Remand Centre while simultaneous protests were held in Murray Bridge Port Augusta and Port Lincoln
Despite publicly stating before the election that "privatisation was not on his agenda" and "the best chance of growing public service numbers was under the Liberals", the new South Australian Government has announced it will waste $170 million in redundancies to save $280 million by cutting public service worker numbers by more than 4,000 jobs over the next four years and privatise pathology, radiology and prisoner remand services sparking widespread spontaneous protests.
CPSU is proud to celebrate Child Protection Week and give recognition to the valuable and challenging work of our members across Australia by launching our inaugural CPSU Child Protection awards to be bestowed on a Child Protection union delegate this week.
Union members are taking the message into the community – Australia needs a pay rise. Pay rises are not keeping up with the cost of living because the system is out of balance. We need to change the rules so working people have the bargaining power to win their fair share.
The surge in prisoner numbers has been a threat to the health and safety of officers and ancillary staff working in the system.
All jurisdictions reported that the biggest impact on availability of beds was changes to sentencing laws, particularly Victoria and Tasmania where suspended sentences have been abolished, access to bail has been tightened and Tasmania reports that changes are going through Parliament now that will make access to remissions harder therefore further exacerbating the lack of available beds.
A fraud has been perpetrated on ordinary people, whether it be a person working for a Government service, or the community that uses a now privatised/corporatised service. For the past 25-30 years we, as a nation, have had to deal with a political class (both major parties) who have felt that the way to economic prosperity for our respective States, or our Nation, was to outsource, privatise and downsize the public sector. It has been done (and continues to be done), in the mistaken belief, that “trickle down” economics is good for everyone, from the highest paid to the lowest.
Save the Date in your city (location details tbc): July 8 in Sydney, July 13 in Brisbane and July 15 in Melbourne.
Amid Federal Budget cuts of a further $83.7 million in funding to the ABC, and in the wake of the Liberal Party Federal Council vote, CPSU and MEAA are joining with Friends of the ABC to hold public protest rallies in defence of the ABC.
CPSU Federal Secretary and Our Victorian Branch Secretary Karen Batt addressed Melbourne's massive Change the Rules Rally outside Flinders Street Station.
‘CPSU members are here today to declare we will fight
We will fight to change the rules for the interest of all our members across the national and state tiers of government.
We are over two million workers
Standing up for public services has always been a fight we’ve taken on
Governments become our employers
Thousands of Tasmanian Unionists marched through the Hobart streets yesterday in bright sunshine to launch the twelve days of national action to change the rules. Led by ACTU Secretary Sally McManus who promised the ACTU would be upping the ante to push for change in industrial relations rules. Sally McManus said many workers in Tasmania were feeling the "sharp end of trickle-down economics" arguing stronger protections were needed to make sure they get a fair go.
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Thousands of workplace delegates from every union in Victoria, including CPSU, gathered inside the Melbourne Town Hall this morning to receive a briefing and take a message to all workplaces that we neeed to change the rules. If we want fair pay increases, if we want to change the rules so working people get their fair share - we will need to fight for it. Profits are up, productivity is up, but wage growth is at record lows. We need new rules to balance the power of big business to bring back the fair go for working people. It’s time to hit the streets and demand new rules so Australia
