NT Embraces Your Rights at Work Campaign

Your new ASU leadership team of Andy Dennard (Secretary) and Katrine Hildyard (Assistant Secretary) visited ASU members in the Northern Territory in mid August.

Andy, Raylene Chandler, Katrine, Be Potter, Margaret MacDonald and Pam Hefner(ANF Member)

Along with Lucio Matarazzo (the ASU Organiser in the Territory) Andy and Katrine visited a number of workplaces and spoke to members and potential members about the Your Rights at Work Campaign and to explain why it is important that we do all we can to raise awareness in the broader community about the Howard Government's anti-worker agenda when it comes to rights at work.

"It was great to get a chance to meet our members in the Territory face to face and talk about these important issues" said Andy. "We were impressed with both the awareness of Territory workers as to how the proposed changes might affect them and their commitment to fight them".

"It was particularly interesting to talk with employees (both members and potential members) at Palmerston City Council about their concerns in relation to the Australian Workplace Agreements they had been put on and their desire to work together to get back to a Union negotiated collective agreement" said Katrine. "It shows that even under current legislation AWAs can be used to disadvantage employees and it is only going to get worse under John Howard's new workplace laws. More than ever members will need to stick together to protect and improve their conditions."

Andy and Katrine were able to talk with members from a variety of workplaces including Qantas, Darwin City Council, Palmerston City Council Litchfield Shire Council, NTCOSS, NT Carers Association, Dawn House, Working Women's Centre, Air North, Australian Air Express just to name a few.

"Our visit also highlighted the great job Lucio is doing with limited resources and what could be achieved if we had more resources" said Andy. "With this in mind we would like to start a Member Organiser programme in the Territory with the extra resources we hope to have next financial year, whereby we second ASU Workplace Representatives or active members off the job for a period, usually three months, to work on specific projects aimed at addressing issues important to our members and growing the union".

Andy and Katrine were also able to meet with the NT minister for Employment, Corporate and Information Services, Dr Chris Burns and his advisor John Martin to discuss how we believe the NT Long Service Leave Act could be improved and to seek support for a joint project with Community Service employers to look at getting up Enterprise agreements in the sector. We hope to hear positive announcements on both fronts in the near future.