ACTU – Organisation for CDP workers stronger than ever one year in

9 June 2018

The First Nations Workers Alliance (FNWA) has held meetings with 1200 Indigenous workers and their community representatives in 20 regions, signing up 760 members and reached hundreds of thousands on social media in its first year.

The fight against the racially discriminatory Community Development Program continues, with the Turnbull Government standing by a policy which subjects Indigenous workers in remote communities to longer hours and stricter requirements with no pay, no leave, no OHS protections and workers compensation.

Again this week we have seen evidence of workers in the CDP being forced to work without safety equipment, risking serious injury under threat of having their only payments taken away for months.

This program is a disgrace to all Australians and must be scrapped.

Quotes attributable to ACTU Indigenous Officer Lara Watson:

• “This program must end. Every day that this continues is another day that Indigenous people go without the dignity of wok, without economic autonomy, under the paternalistic policies of this government.
• “This program is putting workers at risk. No one should have to work in a workplace that they believe is unsafe, everyone has the right to be safe at work and go home at the end of the day.
• “We need real jobs in remote communities, with real pay and the full protection of workplace laws.
• “We welcome everyone who has already joined up to the FNWA and everyone who has supported the CDP workers. We hope that this year we will see an end to this disastrous policy.”