Planning the nation’s recovery
From the General Secretary
By Mary Franklyn General Secretary
ACTU plan The current COVID-19 crisis has upended the lives, and livelihoods, of many of our fellow Australians. As the nation deals with the economic fallout of the crisis, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has proposed a five-fold reconstruction plan to help the nation and its working people recover. The five concrete ideas are designed to create and save jobs, protect and nurture whole industries, support public and private sector jobs, invest in future skills and training and strengthen Australia’s physical and social infrastructure. These ideas include a national commitment to free early childhood education and care, massive investment in training (including 150,000 free TAFE places), a Rediscover Australia initiative to help our travel and hospitality sectors survive, a large and sustained increase in infrastructure investment and a comprehensive plan to expand sustainable manufacturing. The ACTU has called for urgent government intervention and investment to rebuild the economy and create permanent, secure jobs. The SSTUWA supports the ACTU’s call and comments from president Michele O’Neil, who says: “Government must help build ongoing local jobs, more training and education opportunities to get people into jobs and provide support for people who are making things here in Australia. “We need big and bold government investment and action in order for Australia to return to health – both socially and economically,” Michele continues. “With almost one million people officially unemployed and many hundreds of thousands out of work, or without enough
work, the Australian people need to see that the economy isn’t going to fall off a cliff. “We are calling on Scott Morrison and his government to think big by investing public money for public good, in creating jobs that support people and communities now and into the future. “Our initiatives will support and create jobs for women and men, for cities and towns, and for young people as well as older workers.
The Public Good It is in the midst of the Centre for Future Work’s warnings that we remind members about the UnionsWA campaign, The Public Good, which pulls together strands of Dr Stanford’s research and the ACTU’s economic recovery plan. The Public Good campaign seeks to educate the community about the vital role public servants play in their lives and hold governments accountable between election cycles.
“Whether it is free and universal childcare, the expansion of public infrastructure investment with locally made materials, free TAFE courses focused on rebuilding our skills and training sector, support to revitalise our travel and hospitality sectors and regional communities or building a sustainable manufacturing capacity, this plan delivers jobs, community infrastructure and a future for Australia.
Public servants have shouldered a huge burden to help WA and the nation cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, from the health workforce, to teachers, police and emergency workers, cleaners and other essential services workers.
“This is a plan for a jobs-led economic reconstruction.”
During its efforts to ensure members stayed safe during the COVID-19 outbreak one of the things the SSTUWA called for was testing in schools.
For more detail about the ACTU’s plan, turn to page 26 of this issue of Western Teacher.
Public service wages I am a big fan of the work being done by Dr Jim Stanford, who is the director of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work. His latest research, with colleague Troy Henderson, centres on the negative consequences of freezing public service pay. Dr Stanford argues that the current era of wage freezes for public sector workers is not only detrimental for the long-term financial security of workers themselves, but risks transforming the Australian recession into an economic depression. It’s a sobering warning, one which you can read in full on page 16.
They need to be recognised and rewarded for this work. To support this campaign visit thepublicgood.com.au
COVID testing
As a result the state government made schools a key focus in the COVID-19 testing program. The program involved 79 public schools and has completed its first round of testing. The purpose was to test for asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. Of the 4,757 tests carried out, all were negative. In addition 20,500 surveys were completed, yet to be analysed. Participants ranged in age from 4-71 years; 85 per cent were children. Swab testing at participating schools will be repeated at least twice more during Term 3. Western Teacher
August 2020
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