Quality Youth Services for Young People

A Joint Statement from the Australian Services Union & the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland 

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The Australian Services Union and the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland are pleased to announce the next phase in our campaign to improve youth services and address the chronic recruitment and retention problems that they are facing.

Over the past 9 months the ASU and YANQ have been talking with the sector about this challenge and the impact it is having on the quality of services young people are receiving. We have discussed how the Youth Services Multi-Employer Agreement (MEA) in conjunction with the Unions application for a new combined State SACS / CASH Award can provide the mechanism through which the wages and conditions of employees can be improved.

In the short term, the aim of the Youth Services MEA is to:

• Lock in the existing wages and conditions of employees currently working under the SACS or CASH awards and prevent them from being moved to less favourable conditions on other awards.
• Bring a significant improvement to wages by establishing percentage based, rather than flat-dollar increases which have been based on Federal / State Minimum Wage decisions. This values current workers and allows organisations more scope to attract & retain staff.
• Introduce Portable Long Service Leave and a range of other above award conditions.

In the long term the Youth Services MEA and MEAs in other sectors can, with enough support, move the wages and conditions of non-government employees in community services towards parity with their colleagues in the public sector.

The Next Phase - Negotiating an Agreement

Youth services and members of the Union will be contacted shortly to begin the next phase of this campaign. In this next phase:

1. Youth workers that are members of the Union will review and make a final decision on the improvements (log of claims) that they wish to seek from employers.
2. Youth services will enter into negotiations around these log of claims.
3. With the assistance of YANQ and the Union, youth services will calculate the cost of the improvements negotiated.
4. Submissions based on these costings will be developed and presented to funding bodies seeking their support.
5. Together, your Union, Youth Services, QCOSS and YANQ will make representations to the relevant funding bodies to ensure they understand the difficulties facing workers and Organisations and how the MEA addresses them.

If this campaign is to have any chance of success we need your help

How You Can Help

For further information contact:

Authorised and printed by David Smith, Branch Secretary, Australian Services Union
Ground Floor, 32 Peel Street, South Brisbane 4101
Phone: 3844 5300 / Fax: 3846 5046 / W: www.asuqld.asn.auwww.asuqld.asn.au.

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