SACS CAMPAIGN

Friday, 15 February 2008 19:35

cswiw Your union, the ASU, is embarking on a campaign to improve salaries and conditions across the Social and Community Services Sector. Our campaign is called Community Service - What's it Worth?

The information that we have tells us that wages are low, workload is high and that it is very difficult for employers to attract and retain staff to provide the vital community services required. However, it is important for us to have detailed, factual information so that we can work effectively and successfully with you for the improvements.

Our SACS members are employed in not for profit, government funded organisations. They work as counsellors, administrators, mental health workers, refuge workers, training and support staff and many other valuable occupations.

SACS workers often are paid well below other similar professionals who work in private enterprise or for the Federal or State Government.

SACS workers typically find their work is very stressful. Often dealing with people in crisis - and often with not enough support to do their job properly. No wonder staff turnover in this industry is extraordinarily high, with many current workers actively considering a complete change in career.

Community Service - What's it Worth? is the question being legitimately asked by many workers in the industry.

We posed this same question to ASU Delegates, members and supporters at the initial Community Service - What's it Worth? forum, held on 14^th March at the ASU offices in East Perth.

Everyone agreed that Community Service is worth different things to different people, but it is certainly worth more than current rates of pay.

Everyone agreed that we need to educate the public, the Government and funding bodies about the valuable work that ASU members do on a daily basis.

We need to join together and unite our voices to improve our members' salaries and conditions in the Social and Community Services Sector. The future of the Sector depends upon our success.

Our campaign aims are:

To grow our union in strength of numbers and involvement of members as we work to increase the funding to organisations so that we can increase salaries and improve the conditions of our members and their colleagues.

To educate our members and their colleagues about our campaign and the means by which they can assist by working with us for the improvements.

To work with stakeholders in the SACS industry to educate the public of Western Australia about the work that SACS workers do, the value currently placed on it compared with what it should be and the capacity of organisations to carry out the work with appropriate funding.

Helen Creed, the Fair Employment Advocate, was the key speaker at our forum and assured members of her continuing support. Helen told us that the first union she joined was ASU - when she worked as a Social Worker. She also explained that in the health industry, there are similar rates of pay - regardless of whether work is done by Government workers or private sector workers. There is not the yawning gap between the pay of "not for profit" and government social workers that we see in the SACS industry.

Members have their say

As part of our campaign we have undertaken a survey of SACS workers - to find out what issues are important to them.
We had hundreds of responses from members and potential members.
The results show that the majority of workers are currently aged between 41 and 60 years of age, and that 83.6% of workers are women.
Salaries, stress levels and workload were the three major areas of concern for our workers, along with lack of training and proper recognition of skills.

One of the decisions from the Forum was to establish a campaign committee. These are the active members who said they want to lend a hand:

Gai Walker	Angela Hartwig
Trish McGowan	Victor Hawke
Blanche Kyneur	Enrico Burgio
Lorraine Morrison	Marianne Mayer
Sanna Andrew	Lyn MacLaren

We will be visiting as many SACS workplaces as possible over the next three months.

Please contact Pat Branson, Assistant Branch Secretary on 9427 7777 to organise a visit.

We have also started a petition to the Minister for Community Services that we are asking people to sign, and we have a really long calico petition for members to autograph.

We are asking all ASU members to support our campaign for better community services. It is only by paying workers a fair wage and addressing issues like stress and the lack of resources that we can properly support the important work that community service workers do.

If you would like to support our campaign by signing the petition and asking your family and friends to also sign the petition, please contact Pat Branson, Assistant Branch Secretary.

Remember - We can win this for our SACS members if we all join together.

To download petition click here

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