australian workers union

Aged care providers and the union movement have united to reject the current blame shifting on vaccination, saying it is government failures that have caused low vaccination rates, not workers.

Providers and unions have been calling for fast action on vaccinating workers within the high-risk sector for at least six months, however the government’s aged care vaccine program has too often led to disappointment, frustration, confusion and anger.

The Australian Aged Care Collaboration – a coalition of peak organisations for aged care employer groups – has joined with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, Australian Workers Union, United Workers Union, Health Services Union, Australian Services Union and the Australian Council of Trade Unions to demand that the Morrison Government implement the five following principles into a rollout strategy that will support aged care workers to be vaccinated quickly and safely using the Pfizer vaccine only:

Ensure client, resident and worker safety
Government funded workplace vaccination and prioritised access to vaccination providers near workplaces
Paid leave to access vaccinations and recover from effects or reactions if needed
Targeted vaccine education and communication
Transparency and accountability on vaccine data and supply

ANMF Federal Secretary, Annie Butler, said that the group was “angry that the Government is trying to blame workers for its own failure to manage the COVID-19 vaccination rollout both in aged care and across the community”.

“The Government has not been able to deliver on its own strategy, which prioritised aged care workers as the highest priority, and is now using a ‘smoke and mirrors’ game to pin the responsibility on the worker. But as we’ve seen with the latest COVID outbreak in NSW, the vaccine roll-out in privately-run aged care facilities is not a game. It is completely serious,” she continued.

Aged care workers were told at the beginning of 2021 that they were first priority and would receive easy access to the vaccine in their workplace. This did not happen.

Both unions and aged care providers insist that the only way to improve vaccine pick up is to make it easy for workers, not to shame them.

“The Government must finally listen to workers, their unions and providers – and act on our recommendations,” Ms Butler said.

Labour movement leaders express anger at police raid on Australian Workers’ Union offices.

The raid of the AWU’s Sydney and Melbourne offices was part of an investigation by the Registered Organisations Commission (ROC) into whether donations to the online activist group GetUp were authorised under the union’s rules.

The Turnbull government set up the ROC after the Heydon royal commission into unions. The raids were widely publicised after the media was tipped off beforehand by employment minister Michaela Cash’s office.

Michaelia Cash denied five times in the Senate any prior knowledge of the raid.

“I can also assure you that my office did not find out about the raids until after they were conducted,”
she said.

Within days her senior media officer David De Garis resigned after admitting he had briefed media outlets about the AFP operation.

Josh Bornstein from law firm Maurice Blackburn described the raids as an “outrageous abuse of power” and said the ROC could have written to the union or produced a summons for the documents.

“None of these actions were taken. Instead, a highly organised media strategy was implemented so that television cameras arrived before the AFP (Australian Federal Police) to capture the raid and therefore seek to paint the union in the worst possible light.”

The AWU made a $100,000 donation to GetUp when it was created in 2005. The then leader of the AWU, Bill Shorten, was a founding director of GetUp.

The donations were disclosed to the Australian Electoral Commission in statements signed by Bill Shorten on 19 January 2007 and then-Victorian secretary Cesar Melham in December 2006.

The decision to support GetUp was also discussed in the union’s magazine at the time.

Another anti-union “smear fest”

Current AWU national secretary Daniel Walton said the union had been cooperating with the ROC prior to the raid.

“The strange thing is we had already provided details through to the Registered Organisations to show proof of making proper declarations on these.

“Those donations were made to further the interests of AWU members. We stood by them then, and we stand by them today.”

ACTU secretary Sally McManus accused the Turnbull government of “a shocking attack on democracy”.

“The ROC and the ABCC (Australian Building and Construction Commission) are given extraordinary and undemocratic powers to pursue working people, making unions the most overly regulated organisations in the country,” she said.

“As we have now seen, the ROC will raid union offices on the basis of an anonymous phone call.”

Bill Shorten said he had already been cleared by the Heydon royal commission which had
closely scrutinised his leadership of the AWU.

“A whole royal commission was set up – in no small part to attack my reputation. $80 million of taxpayer money wasted. I answered and attended that royal commission over two days … and at the end of that massive waste of money – that political smear fest – there were no adverse findings made.”

“Stop blaming workers for vaccine failures”: unions and providers tell Govt

Raid on union offices “a shocking attack on democracy”