Victorian Trades Hall Council. The voice of Victorian workers since 1856.Victorian Trades Hall Council. The voice of Victorian workers since 1856.

Historic special meeting held in Deakin

An historic Special meeting of the Victorian Trade Hall’s Council has urged unions to recruit as many volunteers as possible to help in the Your Right’s at Work campaigns in three key Victorian marginal seats.

The call came on 27 September at the Special Council meeting in the marginal seat of Deakin, in Melbourne’s outer east.

The Trades Hall took the historic step of holding the meeting away from its traditional Carlton home to underline its commitment to the campaigns in the seats of Deakin, La Trobe and Corangamite.

The meeting, of more than 60 people at the Whitehorse Centre in Nunawading, was given first-hand accounts of the severe damage the Howard Government’s WorkChoices program was inflicting on workers in Australia’s telecommunications and postal systems.

The meeting was open to the public and was attended by a large number of Deakin residents.

Trades Hall Council Secretary, Brian Boyd, told delegates and guests that the coming federal election was, for working people, the most important in a generation.

“If the Federal Government gets another term in office it will ratchet-up even further its attack on the working conditions and wellbeing of ordinary Australian families.

“Mr Howard’s WorkChoices and AWA’s are cutting the guts out of pay rates, hours of work, penalty rates and sick and holiday leave. They are leaving working people out-of-pocket and with no job security,” he said.

The meeting also heard campaign reports from the Your Rights at Work Coordinator in Deakin, Linda Cargill, and the ALP candidate for the seat, Mike Symon.

Mr Boyd noted the Liberals had launched a vicious anti union campaign against Mr Symon.

He warned that the Liberals campaign in Deakin was ugly and, “shows that they’ll stop at nothing to retain power - at any price.”’

After the meeting closed, about half of the audience remained behind to watch the documentary “Constructing Fear” which details the abuses and attacks on workers by the Federal Government’s Australian Building Construction Commission. CFMEU organiser, Gareth Stephenson, introduced the film and answered questions from the audience.


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