ACTU: National Employment Standards

From 1 January 2010 a new national workplace relations system will apply to most employees in Australia.
This fact sheet provides details of your rights and entitlements under the new Fair Work Act.

National Employment Standards
As an employee, you are entitled to the following minimum employment terms and conditions:

• For full time employees – a maximum standard working week of 38 hours. Your employer can require you to work reasonable additional hours but you have the right to refuse unreasonable hours. Whether the hours are unreasonable will depend on your position, the arrangement of the hours, health and safety and your family responsibilities. Note that the relevant Modern Award may provide for averaging of hours over more than a week.
• The right to request flexible working arrangements to care for a child under school age, or a child (under 18) with a disability. Your employer must consider the request and can only refuse on reasonable business grounds.
• 12 months unpaid parental (or adoption) leave for each parent after the birth (or adoption) of a child. You also have the right to request a further twelve months unpaid parental leave. Your employer can only refuse on reasonable business grounds.
• Four weeks paid annual leave each year plus an additional week for some shift workers.
• Ten days paid personal or carer’s leave each year that carries over from year to year. You can use this leave when you’re sick or when you need to care for a member of your immediate family or household.
• Two days paid compassionate leave when a member of your immediate family or household dies or is seriously ill. If you require more time off, you can take two additional days of unpaid carer’s leave.
• Community Service Leave for jury service or activities dealing with certain emergencies or natural disasters. With the exception of jury service, this leave is unpaid.
• Long Service Leave. Your existing long service leave is secured by the new federal laws.
• Public holidays and the entitlement to be paid for ordinary hours on those days. Penalty rates for working on public holidays are provided for in Modern Awards and Enterprise Agreements. You have the right to reasonably refuse to work a public holiday.
• Notice of termination and redundancy pay.

The right for new employees to receive the Fair Work Information Statement.
A complete copy of the National Employment Standards (NES) can be viewed at www.fairwork.gov.au. Please note some limitations may apply — for instance, if you are a casual employee your terms and conditions of employment will be slightly different.

For further information contact your union or phone 13004UNION.

ACTU letter to Australia Post

The ACTU has stepped into the public debate about our members' current dispute with Australia Post, with a simple message for the corporation: "get back to the bargaining table."

ACTU President Sharan Burrow said Australia Post was unnecessarily escalating the dispute by using casual staff to circumvent protected and legal industrial action.

She said the dispute had worsened because of Australia Post management's refusal to sit down and negotiate with the Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union.

Last week, the union lifted workplace bans for several days in a spirit of good faith to allow negotiations to resume, but over the weekend, Australia Post management again rejected talks that could have resolved the dispute.

Ms Burrow said that rather than concentrating on negotiations to end the dispute, Post management had been pre-occupied with organising an alternative workforce.

"For months, Australia Post workers have been seeking a new enterprise agreement that provides job security and better workplace safety," Ms Burrow said.

"Australia Post management appears to be deliberately escalating this dispute by putting up all sorts of excuses for not negotiating with the union."

For further information

Contact: Ed Husic, National President
Union: CEPU
WWW: http://www.cepuconnects.org

TckTckTck report

From TckTckTck

This year, from a strong, but small seed of climate campaigning, a movement touching millions of people in hundreds of countries around the world has grown. Over the last two weeks while leaders were dithering an additional 5 million people joined the campaign, resulting in a total of 15 million voices calling for a fair, ambitious and legally binding deal.

More than 250 partner organisations have come together to form an unprecedented alliance under the TckTckTck banner – including development, human rights, environment, religious and youth groups, trade unions and scout groups. Over three days of global action, these partners have mobilized unprecedented numbers of people campaigning for urgent action on climate change. In Copenhagen on December 12, one hundred thousand people marched in a powerful manifestation of this unity.

And, when naysayers, fearmongers, and the business-as-usual-crowd try to usurp the issue, they will be met by a surging sea of people from all around the globe and all walks of life unified in their demand for a real deal.

The global climate movement - more diverse than ever before - stands united in the face of tonight's disappointing news. This weekend we are mounting an unprecedented response, with joint messaging appearing on the global public websites of our partners, to ensure world leaders know we are unimpressed with their lack of real progress and failure to deliver a real deal.

We have come so far in a short space of time. Millions around the world look to the future and see hope, justice, and opportunity. It is up to each of us to make our voices heard and to get the real deal that the world needs.

The world’s leaders still have a chance to get it right. They must realize that we expect, and will not accept, anything less.

They’re not done yet. Neither are we.

Climate scientists scoreboard

Extensive analysis of the Copenhagen talks has been put forth by pundits across the political spectrum. In many ways, the scientific bottom line is the most important story here, and it's a story that few are telling.

Scientists and statisticians and Climate Interactive have presented these stark figures about the proposals on the table. Here's the scoreboard right now.

Unions: Copenhagen falls short

19 December, 2009 | ACTU Media Release
At the close of the Copenhagen conference, world leaders must move to resume negotiation to tackle climate change, before it is too late, say unions.

"This conference has fallen short of an agreement on ambitious targets for emissions reductions and the binding deal that leaders needed to reach to start turning around the build-up of greenhouse gas emissions," said ACTU President Sharan Burrow, an official observer of the United Nations’ talks.

The ACTU and the global organisation for unions, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) called world leaders’ attention to the UN’s scientific advice that in order to avoid irreversible and catastrophic temperature increase, far-reaching and binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions by industrialised countries by 2020 were required, combined with ambitious and verifiable actions in developing nations.

"Furthermore, pledges by industrialised countries to provide assistance for adaptation and mitigation measures by developing countries still falls short of the minimum level estimated by the United Nations," said Ms Burrow, who is also President of ITUC.

One of the sole positive features of the Copenhagen negotiations concerned the support from many governments to including reference to decent work and just transition for the workforce within the framework of the UN’s efforts on climate change.

Addressing the Plenary, Ms Burrow said: "We would like to express our satisfaction that this process has recognised the importance of calling for a just transition as a driver for decent work and good quality job creation. We thank those parties that understood the potential of this paragraph for building a broad support for climate action."

But she said unless further negotiations were based on such text this commitment to a 'just transition' was now at risk.

The ITUC reiterated that the restricted access of civil society and NGO representatives to the UN conference centre was unacceptable.

"It is vital that when negotiations resume at the UNFCCC and at the COP16 meeting in Mexico next year, the access of civil society representatives be guaranteed once again," Ms Burrow said.

"Unions are deeply disappointed at the clear differences between governments that persist and have resulted in the world leaving Copenhagen without an acceptable deal.

"We need a binding agreement that delivers a habitable planet, decent work, binding emissions reductions and financial support for the most vulnerable.

"We call on world leaders to meet again within months to meet the expectations of the world’s people and conclude such a treaty."