Between 2022-2024, our members helped win historic industrial relations reforms that expanded collective bargaining rights, secured equal pay protections, strengthened delegate rights, and created new tools for workers to organise and win improvements across whole industries.
Through sustained campaigning and direct lobbying by our members, United Workers Union played a key role in winning two landmark packages of industrial relations reform – “Secure Jobs, Better Pay” and “Closing the Loopholes” – that delivered the most significant improvements to workers’ rights in a generation.
Our members’ organising helped secure groundbreaking changes including:
*Multi-employer bargaining rights that allowed early childhood educators to negotiate together across employers for the first time
*”Same Job, Same Pay” provisions ensuring labor hire workers receive equal pay
*Strong gender pay equity requirements in Awards
*Pathways to permanent work through casual conversion rights
*Protection from endless fixed-term contract renewals
*New rights and minimum standards for gig economy workers
*Historic strengthening of delegate rights in Awards through a model clause that protects union representatives
*The right to disconnect from work outside of hours
Most significantly, these reforms strengthened workers’ collective power by expanding rights to organise and bargain together. A new model clause in Awards provided unprecedented protections for delegates to represent members without fear of retaliation. These changes created vital new tools for workers to build power and win improvements across entire industries.