All NSW

Here in NSW, manufacturing workers build everything from passenger train carriages through to massive naval air warfare destroyers.Support the campaign: www.buildthemhere.com.au

But in recent years, more and more of our transport manufacturing contracts have gone to low-cost overseas competitors. 
 


Buses and rail rolling stock, along with all sorts of other heavy equipment, are commonly imported from China in tube or flat-pack form. After they’re shipped over, the skilled NSW tradespeople who used to build these buses and trains from scratch now assemble and fit them out. 
 


This trend puts valuable jobs, skills and apprenticeship opportunities at risk.  
 


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 The NSW State Budget contained new tax breaks for business, and a surprise budget surplus, but little to tackle the State’s transport problems.

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The NSW Government’s budget surplus averaging $800 million each year for the next four years would be better spent improving the public services that have been razed by years of cost cutting.

What a waste: we need services not surplusesIf we are to successfully implement the budget’s infrastructure plans and meet projected population increases across NSW, we’ll simply need more public sector workers.

As the NSW economy recovers and major infrastructure projects begin to take off, it is concerning that no efforts are being made by the Government to keep up with demand.

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The NSW Government must commit to growing the public sector at next month’s budget if it is to keep up with the demand for essential services.

This is one of the key findings revealed in Keeping Pace: The Impact of Population Growth on NSW Public Services, a report launched at the PSA’s annual conference in Sydney today.

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A decision in the Industrial Relations Commission recently to allow all breastfeeding mothers in the public service lactation breaks and the right to a private space to express milk has been hailed as a breakthrough for women’s rights, and it is hoped more workplaces will follow suit.
Breastfeeding: more milk please

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Emergency services and health workers are sick of being punching bags for drunk idiots.  They need your support - sign the Last Drinks petition! 

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Kevin Rudd’s massive reform gives context and urgency to our campaign in NSW to win mandated minimum staffing numbers.

The Federal Government’s National Health Reform Plan is politics on a big canvas. It is up there with the introduction of Medicare.

As with anything on this scale we need to hold off on rushing to judgement, all the more so when there is a lot of detail yet to be announced.

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The train line running through Newcastle’s CBD has been under threat for years now.

At regular intervals the people of Newcastle have a new plan with a new risk analysis thrust before them – to cut the heavy rail line at Wickham or Civic, to build a new interchange, to turn the rail line into a ‘green zone’, to transport people to the city via a bus link.

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During our last Award negotiations for NSW firefighters, I sat in a meeting with other FBEU officials, and NSW Treasury.

While discussing the limit placed on public sector wages, we floated one of many ideas that firefighters could implement to save the NSW government millions of dollars in school infrastructure through fire prevention. We suggested that a portion of that could be returned in wages.

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