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Workers and unions

Workers are more productive than ever – so why are we often working harder, for longer, in less secure jobs? The retirement age keeps being pushed higher but hundreds of thousands of people in work can’t get enough hours. 

We need to stop deregulation and casualisation, and instead use every means to improve wages and conditions for workers. Even more important, workers need to act collectively – to organise and strike against exploitation and injustice in the workplace.

What we think

  1. All economic value, and therefore all business profit, is produced by labour.
  2. When workers do not collectively own and manage their own place of work, the interests of workers and employers are counterposed. There is always a battle over the share of value produced in the economy going to bosses’ profits versus the share going to workers’ wages.
  3. Work should be socially useful, personally rewarding, safe, secure and well paid.
  4. There must be equal pay for work of equal value; workplaces and industrial laws must be free from discrimination.
  5. Workers should collectively own and democratically control their workplaces, including the right to elect and fire management.
  6. Workers have the right to be a member of a trade union that is free from government or corporate interference, and the right to organise, to strike and to collectively bargain.

We'll fight to

  1. Ditch anti-strike laws and allow workers to strike at any time, not just once every few years when an enterprise agreement expires.
  2. Lift the ban on solidarity strikes and picketing
  3. Restore industry-wide bargaining
  4. Reform “right of entry” laws to remove restrictions on union access to worksites
  5. Establish a legally enshrined right to picket
  6. Scrap all anti-union laws.
  7. Increase the minimum wage to $30 per hour (currently $24.10)
  8. Restore penalty rates (cut for retail and hospitality workers in 2017-20, and for many other workers before and since)
  9. Recognise the right to secure work for all and work to reverse the trend to casualisation
  10. Impose tougher criminal sanctions for employers that steal workers’ wages or hide their money offshore to avoid tax.
  11. Establish full industrial, residency and citizenship rights for all migrant and guest workers
  12. Expand apprenticeship programs
  13. Introduce a four day work week with no reduction in weekly income – to reduce unemployment, and ensure the benefits of automation flow to all.
  14. Guarantee the right to retirement and access to the pension for all at age 60.