PRIME MINISTER
MINISTER FOR WORKPLACE RELATIONS
GILLARD GOVERNMENT TO DELIVER HISTORIC PAY RISE FOR SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY WORKERS

Prime Minister Julia Gillard today announced the Government was prepared to provide over $2 billion to deliver an historic pay rise to 150,000 of Australia's lowest paid workers in the social and community services sector - the vast majority of them women.

This is an important step on the road to closing the long-standing pay gap between men and women and delivering fairness to the workplace.

Workers in this sector have been underpaid for too long because their work was viewed as women's work. They work in incredibly challenging jobs, including:
" Working with people with disabilities
" Counselling families in crisis
" Running homeless shelters
" Working with victims of domestic violence or sexual assault.

They deserve to be properly rewarded for their work.

The Government will put a joint submission on equal pay with the Australian Services Union to the independent umpire, Fair Work Australia. To back up its commitment the Government is prepared to provide over $2 billion to fund its share of any wage increases awarded.

As part of the campaign for a youth services multi-employer agreement The Australian Services Union and YANQ will be visiting youth interagencies in South-East Queensland.

Come along to your next interagency meeting to hear about how together we can improve services for young people by lifting the working conditions of youth workers.

The following interagency visits have been confirmed:

2nd Joint statement by the Australian Services Union &
the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland

Campaign for a Youth Services
Multi Employer Agreement

Quality Youth Services for Young People

Download this Statement as a PDF to print out and pin on your Staff Noticeboard(111.05 Kb)

Support and momentum for the Youth Services Multi-Employer Agreement (MEA) continues to grow as the ASU and YANQ present and discuss the aims of the agreement at Youth Services Interagency and staff meetings around Southeast Queensland.  Feedback from these meetings has been very positive. Many attendees have acknowledged their first hand experience of the issues facing the sector that this Multi Employer Agreement addresses. This includes poor pay and conditions which adversely effects attraction and retention of staff and the impact this has on the continuity and quality of client service delivery.

During 2006, the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland noticed an increase in the number of organisations and youth workers contacting it to raise concerns about the level of support available for young people who were not involved in education or work.

In response, YANQ undertook this small research project to investigate these concerns and to assess the level and nature of support that is available for young people who are disengaged from education and work. The research focused specifically on young people aged between 12 to 18.

YANQ and Australian Services Union (ASU) have developed a partnership and looking at how we can strengthen the sector using our collective power. As part of this process we will be looking at a Multi Employer Agreement which will hopefully result in both pay increases and better working conditions.

BUSY At Work Community Services is proud to open their FREE Pre-Employment HUB situated in Southport on the Gold Coast.

The Gold Coast Pre-Employment HUB offers assistance to anyone on the Gold Coast who may need help with finding employment. This includes cover letters, resumes, mock interviews, interview tips and workshops etc. The doors are open from Monday - Thursday 9 am - 2 pm and can provide:
Self help facilities with access to:
*      Computers
*      Printers
*      Telephones and faxes
*      Newspapers

Employment Assistance with:
*      Resume & Cover Letter preparation
*      Interview Tips
*      How to Job Search
*      Workshops and plenty more

Please contact 5503 0476 for more information or to book in a time for you to come out and use the facilities.

The following list of Career information services was compiled by Diana Cogill from UQ Student Services.

By David Ingles and Richard Denniss / The Australia Institute

This report argues that we should be doing more to help the unemployed as part of any 'stimulus' packages targeted at propping up the economy.

How Young People are Faring 2008 provides information on how successfully our education and training system is working to meet the needs of young Australians as they make the transition from school to further study and work. It provides up-to-date analysis of the effectiveness of transitions, including information on who is doing well and who is not doing so well in negotiating the various post-school pathways.

The report has been published by the The Foundation for Young Australians in alliance with the Education Foundation .

By Kirk Leonard, Year 11, St Helena Secondary College, Eltham North
Republished with permission by from Unite, the Victorian Union for Fast Food & Retail Workers

About 75% of high school students over the age of 15 work in part time and casual jobs. But while we are busy enjoying our new found cash, we don’t always realise the extent to which we are being ripped off at work.

This report (Lowering the standards: From Awards to Work Choices in Retail and Hospitality Collective Agreement) discusses the results of a study which examines how enforceable rights for employees have changed under Work Choices.

By Jude Elton and others at the Hawke Research Institute for Sustainable Societies

This report analyses qualitative findings about the impact of WorkChoices on women workers most of whom are on minimum wages.

By Marty Grace (Victoria University) and Louise Coventry (YP4)

Providing adequate assistance for people to overcome the extraordinary circumstances that lead to homelessness and unemployment seems, on the face of it, to make good sense. Yet there are diverse opinions about what adequate or meaningful assistance may comprise. One idea is that joining up otherwise discrete government and non-government services can improve outcomes for people facing multiple disadvantages. YP4 is a randomised controlled trial of service delivery option for people experiencing the double disadvantage of homelessness and unemployment.

By Ann Harding, Quoc Ngu Vu and Alicia Payne, NATSEM

Available evidence suggests that the past decade has generally been one of rising earnings and prosperity for the majority of Australians. Broadly speaking, wage earners in both richer and poorer suburbs appear to have shared in the rising tide of prosperity. Although they did increase in real terms, incomes at the bottom of the income spectrum rose somewhat more slowly than for the middle between the mid 1990s and 2002-03, resulting in higher poverty rates and rising income inequality.

National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) recently released the summarised report "Role of VET in helping young peoples' transition into work: at a glance."

This report examines the role that vocational education and training (VET) plays in assisting the transition from school to work for young people up to 24 years of age.  It can be Downloaded now from NCVER's website.