Hello and welcome to the Australian Unemployment Union,
We are an organisation formed in 2014 by a group of people who were fed up with being pushed around by Centrelink and the Employment Services providers.
After seeing that there were many others who were just as frustrated as we were (just go to any Centrelink office anywhere in Australia!), we decided to form an organisation that could provide Unemployed Australians with a voice.
At the Australian Unemployment Union, it is our mission to expose the hidden sufferings of the Unemployed. When Australia’s harsh welfare system is exposed, no Australian could honestly stand by and watch.
To often people justify our welfare system but simply saying, “I’d rather be unemployed in Australia than in lots of other countries”. While it is obvious many other countries have worse welfare systems than ours, this is no reason to stop fighting the injustices that are occurring every day under Australia’s welfare system.
For example, the fact that the current rate of Newstart is less than half of what is needed to live out of poverty is completely unacceptable and must stop.
The fact that Centrelink and employment service providers constantly threaten unemployed Australians with homelessness and starvation unless they get their way is unacceptable and must stop.
The fact that hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities and single parents are being forced onto the Newstart program is completely unacceptable and must stop.
These are only a few of many injustices that occur under Australia’s welfare system.
What aspects of Australia’s welfare system are you concerned with?
Join us and lets fight back!
I have had my money cut for 10 weeks for taking 2 days sick leave while on work for the dole. I have been made homeless, I have been beaten and put into hospital when youths found my camp. I have nearly been fined and almost had all my property stolen by the council when they found my camp. I have attended all these “training” courses for years until I was declared “job ready” by a kid young enough to be my son. I am currently having all sorts of scams I am trying to dodge. I have had it! I Googled today to see about starting a Union so we can put a stop to their rot. Everytime you go there is another infringement on your peace of mind, another hoop to jump through, another chance to fail and be cut off. I am with you.
Neil TheFreeMan Milliner
Hello,
Firstly Id like to say its great to see people helping the unemployed.
Id like to ask you a few questions please 🙂
-How does a person get any assistance / representation,
-Is their a fee payable for joining.
-The ‘Work for the Dole’ Scheme, is this going to be supported as well
and finally how do people get on board to assist with your program and help to look out for the people experiencing unfair treatment.
I would greatly appreciate a reply via my inbox please at your earliest convenience.
People need to get on board with this union..
Action in Numbers & United We Stand <3
Well Done for doing this
I was part of an unemployed peoples union in Wollongong in the 80’s (WOW) Wollongong outof workers union. I was just thinking recently that It would be good to try and get another union for unemployed people in the Southern suburbs of Wollongong. We have some of the highest unemployment in the region, especially youth unemployment which is one of the highest in the country. Anyone intrested in getting together for a meeting can contact me at….sharynlacey62@gmail.com.
Thanks.
My main gripe: how many millions of $ are these “Job Service Providers” being paid to essentially baby sit and duplicate the centrelink “personal contact” appointment process. Now employed, I was recently a job seeker. My first JSP was Mission Australia, who gave me the phone number for TAFE when I asked for their help with enrollment. Who allowed (literally, a staff member sat metres away, saying nothing except “Ladies thats enough”) another client to verbally assault me while I was forced to “job search” at their office (because apparently we need supervision, not help). Because of this, I then moved on to Max Employment… who were also unable to help me to enrol in a real course; but I did have to come in each day for two weeks to complete an in-house “course” (or lose payments). The second week was a carbon copy of the first, but it was still important I attend. Jobsearch at Max was much the same as Mission: a large room with not quite enough computers, slow internet, no one helping and 20 other job seekers looked over by the receptionist (whose main job is not allowing jobseekers to escape before their 2 hours are up; no matter how many jobs you had applied for). My sister helped update my resume. I found the jobs. I applied for the jobs. I attended the interviews. I got the job. If I had never attended a JSP the result would have been the same (or perhaps I’d have a real qualification and somewhat more dignity).
I do volunteer work for Trade Hall, when I do that I said I wished I was part of a union, they told me about you guys, so here I am wanting to be part of this union, I am Disabled too, on the dissablity pension, one of the lucky ones to get a mental health illness recognised, but then i have multipul issues, Dyslexia one of them. While I do get more than newstart, my husband is on newstart and is a long time unemployed, and my son will turn 21 at the end of the year and will loose his youth allowance and be on new start then, all will effect us, the six months without payment for my youngest will mean we will struggle for food as there is only 150 left from my payment. I am over 50 so I am hopeing that they will leave my DSP alone, but with the crackdown I may find myself without enough money for our rent.
But the thing that most annoys me is that my husband complies with everything newstart says for him to do, yet he only gets on average less than 5 interviews a year. how on earth can he get a job that way.
This site and union for the unemployed is awesome and it has my complete support.
My story is shocking. 8 years after been made redundant from Telstra, all i have found is occasional casual jobs here and there. My employment service provider has pushed me into course after course, but no jobs have resulted. I go to rare interviews and pissy/snotty attitude employers couldn’t care less! I have a folder full of useless certificates. I am 48 yo-perhaps my age is running against me. To sum up-Centrelink are getting nastier and the Job Services Providers are nothing but a pack of bullying, money hungry-(government kickbacks), lying bunch of predatory bastards! We the unemployed should band together to support each other, I am happy to do anything i can to help with this much needed union.
Hello Owen and others,
I was a member of the Unemployed Workers Union (UWU) in the late 1970s in Brisbane. We argued for full employment. When the Hawke Labor Government came to power in 1983, the government was prepared to accept 6% unemployment because having a reserve of unemployed fitted in with the Accord that government had with big business.
What is Australian Unemployment Union’s position on full employment? Will it tolerate unemployment which could be stopped tomorrow if the LNP and Labor party supported policies like the CDEP scheme where unemployed workers are paid to do important public works.
Also does Australian Unemployment Union support people who wish to be on the dole even though they do not wish to apply for meaningless jobs?
in solidarity,
Ian Curr
October 2014
Literacy difficulties hamper many peple. Too many spelling traps. Experiment!
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Ask me for any questions.
I fought for abt three years to get my claim for DSP accepted. I have learning and intellectual disabilities. I have this site because I was interested in the idea of forming a union for disabled and Unemployed people. I would be happy to help out in anyway that I can.
I have cycled in and out of jobs and unemployment my whole life. I found that it was easier to get a job before the introduction of JSP’s.
I am so pleased to see this up and running. I am particularly concerned about people with disabiliities who are forced onto newstart and denied the disability pension due to the strict new tables designed to reduce expenditure and punish people with disability. Well done.
Hi . I am trying to find help as my job network max is trying to railroad me for speaking up. They have even sent me email from their legal team threatening to sue for defamation if I say anymore. It started because I posted on Gumtree asking if anyone else was experiencing the same issues and I got heaps of
emails and when i read them a lot of people had mentioned the same office with same problems including bullying and poor service. I was taken bac
by it and told the manager of my office. My next appointment i was confronted by 5 staff in a room and spoke to a qld regional area manager who was dictating to me. When I offered her to look at the concerning emails she was telling me she could careless aand throw them in the bin for all she cared.
This was strange to me as was the next few weeks with max and all became clearer when max started to get a lot of bad publicity and it was confirming issues I was experiencing with them. I reposted information about the rorting and four corners report when it came out and two days later I received legal notice from their legal people to sue me for defamation if I say anymore about the conversation I had with the area manager or max in general causing them loss of buusness and said I was to stop this “nonsense ” with them. Offended and destroyed I took a few days to get over that email because I went into seizures for three days from the stress! No exaggeration and attempted to sort this mess out. I have been stonewalled by centrelink and max like they are working together against me. I went for an esat app at centrelink when i joined max where I asked to update my medical records and also asked the interviewer why i had sat across from him for 20 minutes and he hadn’t said one word and he replied he is just copying everything over and doesn’t need any information! !. I requested my file from Max a few days ago and found on it that centrelink called max and told them I refused to answer any questions and had nothing medical to update! !! All lies. But why!!! After reading my file from Max I soon realized they have been setting me up for months writing things like I am aggressive.. and confused all the time and so many lies and have only included what parts of conversations we had that makes me look like I am a nut and they are perfect. The thing I am most devastated about is the way they described my disability on a computer screen for anyone to read and believe they have written it in a way to humiliate me. It should go Like this… client name ” suffers from a rare condition from birth resulting in deformation and has undergone multiple operations that have failed and left client with continence issues impacting the kind of work and or facilities to accommodate clients disability. .
but it reads like this……
clients name ” CANT PEE WHILE HE IS STANDING UP”..
I am beside myself and feel absolutely discriminated against and bullied and humiliated by this company and the more I try to fight them the more sick i get and they are doing this to me.
What can I do!
You should contact A Current Affair – this is exactly the type of story they should know about. Even if you don’t want to be on TV they could still do a story.
http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/feedback.aspx
Hi Alan
Please contact me about what has happened to you. I’d like to know more and may be able to help.
Thanks,
Tim