r/AusUnions

Hey guys, I’ve been working in Queensland Health as a wardy for almost 2 years. Most people are with the AWU and only sign up if they need something sorted and then cancel their membership. I’m only recently starting to get into this kind of stuff, but from what I’ve heard, it seems my coworkers don’t find the value in unions based on some negative outcomes when they’ve tried to exercise their rights through the Union. It seems like theres a disconnect between the big Unions and the workers in terms of any emotional connection to what they want to fight for. So there’s no push or any like any, idk ‘oomph’. We do have like 3 HSRs but thats all I know of, and it seems like our management don’t take our concerns seriously.

I’m thinking of maybe trying to Unionize ourselves in the workplace, but I don’t know if that even is possible or where to even start. Cause I’m thinking we’d have to have lawyers and professionals that can interpret policies right?and with that, the membership fees also seem to be a barrier towards unionising, as my coworkers are so apathetic towards it being worth it. I really want to also bring our supervisors (who are just one paygrade above us) to be involed with this, cause it just seems like a us vs them mentality. But a lot of people don’t trust the supervisors, which I’d like to change, so they can also be on board with us.

Sorry lil vent there, but my Questions would be:

Are their any recommendations towards raising moral at work?

Are there any grants to help kick start unions or do they have to be worker funded?

Yeah yeah, another United Workers Union election post. I know. I'm sorry.
But I promise its not about the fuckery this time.

It seems like there are a chunk of the UWU membership who have no listed address in their records. Gods know why. You'd sort of think that'd have been something someone thought to check prior, but whatever.

So if you've not received your election ballot in the mail by now, here's what I understand to be best practice to unfuck one of the potential issues.

1 - call UWU and speak to the Members Team to ensure address is added.

2 - call AEC, explain situation and give them your current address.

3 - wait for them to contact UWU to confirm eligibility.

4 - get a call back from AEC and hopefully they send out a ballot pack.

We're damn close to the end of the game at this stage, so get on it if you haven't.