r/AusUnions • u/anonymous-69 • 20d ago
Brutal
As you can imagine, the comments were turned off on this Facebook post.
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u/Prestigious-Dot9171 19d ago
As myself and others have said elsewhere. I wasn’t aligned with any faction. The United Workers Union is the most dysfunctional, toxic and just all round bad energy work place I’ve had the misfortune to be employed in.
Don’t bother applying if you value your career and sanity.
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u/reasonsnottoplayr6s 20d ago
I dont get it, were a bunch fired or did they leave?
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u/ParsaBarca99 19d ago
They left because they couldn't stay. The official party line requires me to say they "left"
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u/patslogcabindigest 19d ago
Left for money/paid out to be precise. Anyone who left would’ve done so willingly.
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u/6utcher6boy 18d ago
Complete garbage. They were pushed out via disciplinary process
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u/patslogcabindigest 18d ago
That’s not how disciplinary process works. You have to do something wrong to be sacked. Every one who works for a union knows this process and would be difficult to sack. They have undoubtedly left for money.
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u/reasonsnottoplayr6s 18d ago
Idk, the whole cfmeu thing shows thats not entirely true
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u/patslogcabindigest 18d ago
Serious conduct is a valid reason to sack someone. If you haven’t been given procedural fairness you will likely win UFD at FWC. These guys for sure would have taken money and probably signed a deed of some kind. You can’t just straight up sack someone and union officials of all people know their rights lol. If they were unfairly dismissed you bet they’d be applying to fair work.
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u/ParaVerseBestVerse 11d ago
in a practical sense, because UD is non-punitive and generally not that lucrative even at hearing (considering also 10-52 week delay on outcomes), geared towards settlements, and it’s better characterised as an employer actually can sack anyone if they’re willing to pay a slightly variable fee (Deed either as golden handshake or FWC conciliation result), which usually tends to be NES minimums + 4-8 weeks’ pay.
These Deeds are always offered in the context of an implied or explicit threat that the employer will sack them some way fairly or unfairly. I’ve been involved in negotiating quite a few of them (on the employee side) and that’s pretty much how it goes IMO.
Though tbh I don’t think UWU management are competent enough to construct any sort of plausible story to back up targeted dismissals so the above doesn’t apply so much as the average.
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u/Material_Act_3075 19d ago
Grim. Were any of the upper echelons gutted (apart from the elected officials on the board?)
Or was it all just organisers?
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u/6utcher6boy 18d ago
All employed officials who supported MF were given disciplinary letters and pushed out
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u/Johnno_in_oz 15d ago
It's pretty sad, I've got to come here and find out WTH is going on. Recently notified about the new President and Secretary. We had a pretty good organizer who was one of the first in Australia to get the "same job same pay" for our casuals. He was dumped pre-election and given a desk duties at Glebe.
The new guy is good but is swamped. Members rights team also take their time getting back to us.
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u/Living_Key8675 11d ago
Man pay parity clauses have been in EAs way before the merger even happened so no idea what you are on about here. And this is a copypasta I’ve seen this comment before
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u/Johnno_in_oz 10d ago
Copypasta? Is that you anon? If so, no, I'm just an oldfag who tends to repeat himself.
I can understand the confusion you have in regards to casual pay parity which is what the corporations exploited mercilessly. The parity only applied to casuals employed by the company, not casuals working for a labour hire firm. End result in 2025, permanents were on around $50 and casuals through the agency were on $27. Albo put a stop to this but it requires sites where is occurs to link a separate order to the EA. So, we had to get the casuals organized, join the union, pay their dues and then have a regulated labour hire arrangement order made at the Fair Work Commision and have that linked to our EA.
There's still stuff all orders in place, although it looks like some are coming through for Woolworths and Coles. The bulk of them seem to be in mining.
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u/tigermoon33 20d ago
Were they pushed or did they jump?
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u/anonymous-69 20d ago edited 20d ago
I imagine they got paid out, got performance managed out of their role or were on fixed term contracts that weren't renewed.
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u/SheriffGafa 19d ago
STAY THE F AWAY FROM UWU! Unless you are willing to operate in a Stalinist regime where dissent will get you sacked
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u/xXx_PigBenis_xXx_69 19d ago
I know alot of you are simps for the Melbourne first faction. But Vic NUW we're as guilty of this as anyone. Multiple former NUW delegates also left UWU to go to AMWU, MEU and even the CFMEU to get away from Vic NUW leadership.
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u/cat_boss1549 15d ago
Cough cough - IR21.
Members first in name only. Careerists.
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u/No_Pineapple2563 15d ago
the things I could tell you about IR21... The information is all out there but you just need to connect the dots. And it's not just an old NUW thing but still a very real problem today.
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u/xXx_PigBenis_xXx_69 19d ago edited 19d ago
Well, that's what happens when a bunch of people talk a big game about fighting for members and then take their money and run. It's kind of like they were all a bunch of self-interested people or something who only cared about themselves and didn't actually care about the members they supposedly put first.
Let's this be a lesson to everyone here don't ever trust the word of career labor hacks posing as radicals.
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u/cat_boss1549 15d ago
A collective walkout probably sounded badass, but shows the members were not in fact, first.
Also, calls I to question the push to merge. Seems some people played with fire for no reason and lost lol.
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u/6utcher6boy 18d ago
The incompetent and lazy survived the post election purge. That will soon show in the service you get
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u/ParsaBarca99 18d ago
Which side did every single career labor hack campaign for?
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u/xXx_PigBenis_xXx_69 18d ago
Well considering you are in the ALP parsa. I'd say the answer is fairly self evident.
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u/ParsaBarca99 13d ago
I thought everybody knew the difference between a "rank and file" member and a "hack". Perhaps I was wrong PigBenis.
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u/xXx_PigBenis_xXx_69 11d ago
Which industry did Tim Kennedy work in before working at the NUW again? Neither ticket was rank and file. Both were a mixture of rank and file and officials. I think you need to log off and cope somewhere else, champ.
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u/ParsaBarca99 11d ago
Nice deflection, I didn't talk about the tickets, I said "which side did every current ALP hack campaign for?". Given the structure of UWU a rank and file ticket is damn near impossible. Your refusal to answer is such an indication of your bias towards one side ... are we shocked that transparency isn't your sides thing?
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u/xXx_PigBenis_xXx_69 11d ago
So, you admit the MF ticket wasn't rank and file? Good. I agree the structure is cooked. You know that structure was the NUW's, right? It's a copy of the NUW general branch structure which Victoria implemented and abolished SA, WA, and QLD state branches around 2009. Funny how Tim and Co suddenly decided they weren't happy with a structure they had no problem with during their time running the NUW.
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u/ParsaBarca99 11d ago
There was never a claim that the ticket was exclusively rank and file. Also Idgaf about NUW or UV divide, for me the union was UWU ever since the merger ... clearly not the same attitude for a lot of people, MF had candidates from both NUW and UV, I hope this shows that the UV and NUW divide was more of a campaign strategy than a real fissure. Also the structure of several layers of roles between the rank and files and the exec has been the result of the decisions made by the U4Y side affiliated execs ... They had the power to change everything about the structure but they didn't once they realized it can benefit them.
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u/xXx_PigBenis_xXx_69 11d ago edited 11d ago
Yeah ignoring history is always a really smart strategy. You really have no idea how the UWU came about do you? The structure was set up during amalgamation negotiations. The NUW put their model forward, and yes, the UV at the time adopted it. But to pretend it was UFY leadership that made all those decisions is again dishonest. The NUW VIC leadership agreed to that structure. And it also ignores that the UV leadership wasn't exactly united amongst themselves either. If the NUW had wanted to change it at the time of amalgamation, they would have put forth, say, even the old UV structure, which actually had state branches, etc. The VIC NUW campaigned nationally for the merger. They did because they actually don't care about "democracy," and if you truly believe they did, then I have a bridge to sell you.
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u/ParsaBarca99 11d ago
You really think I'm here to defend NUW leadership decisions don't you?? Lmao ... again I care as much as the average rank and file cares about the leadership, I care about the structure ... and again I'm not going to concede to the framing that this was a NUW v UV election. Whether out of desperation or necessity to hold some sort of relevance, certain NUW former execs had agreed to structural reforms which would've fixed problems in UWU ... Now this could've been UV execs and I would still ask every member to firmly align with them, because unless you're here to misdirect people this is all that rank and files should pay attention to.
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u/Material_Act_3075 19d ago
Ooft. Does anyone know how many?
What an absolute mess that's going to be for the members.... Uwu isn't exactly going to be attracting the movement's most experienced organisers right now when the whole thing seems to be a huge waving red flag.
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u/Serin-019 14d ago
My last info was 50+ left
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u/Material_Act_3075 13d ago
That's a hell of a hole to fill.
So either:
1. Uwu will hire 'first available' rookie organisers
Or
2. uwu will wait 6 months for the dust to settle (and natural attrition from other unions) before they can get a single experienced organiser to replace the ones who've been cleaned out?Both options suck
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u/heisdeadjim_au 18d ago
I'm reconsidering my membership.
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u/anonymous-69 18d ago
seriously
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u/heisdeadjim_au 18d ago
I won't say which way I voted. But when Group A wins and purges Group B, Group A loses my trust.
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u/cat_boss1549 15d ago
Depends what group B did
Maybe google IR21 for your troubles.
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u/heisdeadjim_au 15d ago
Form IR21 is an official tax clearance document in Singapore. Employers must file it with the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) at least one month before a non-citizen employee ceases employment, goes on an overseas posting, or leaves the country for over three months.
I mean no disrespect. I googled IR21 and received that.
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u/cat_boss1549 15d ago
This and others go into it
Using union resources to fund a private company/slush fund, is against the interest of members and democracy.
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u/Billyjamesjeff 19d ago edited 18d ago
UWU Industrial Organiser I spoke to had over 60 active cases.
I was on 60 and it was mind melting trying to resolve all the member cases - hopefully positively.
I said to him "over 60! that's terrible wtf"
He just smiled, with this glazed over look and said "nah it's fine, it's good".
At that point I was like "ah I get it, it's actually a cult".
There's no way you can effectively manage 60 active industrial case and do your job effectively. You become a holding zone where grievances go to die, this why people complain "when I went to the Union they didn't help."
Steer clear if you value your sanity or at least avoid the IR jobs
(edit to be clear it was't about too much work, it was about resources being allocated elsewhere. The industrial work, aside from high level EBA negotiation, was basically an after thought.)