Members and families first

WE care deeply in the AWU about how Australian families live and work. For more than a century we've been hearing reasons why they should get less money or lose their jobs.

The front cover of the AWU's 39 page 1st response to the Fed Govt's Green Paper.

For a century we've been defending their living standards, their rights to safe workplaces, the ability to buy homes and raise children. For a century we've had significant victories in our quest for a fair go.

We are consequently working very closely with the Federal Government on the urgent question of climate change. We are not like Tim Gooden of the Geelong Trades Hall Council throwing molotov cocktails over the wall of the Federal Government, but working closely with it.

If we hold these permits, we will be able to ensure not just that greener jobs will be available soon, but that many of our present jobs will continue, in greener workplaces and industries with greener environmental outcomes, in cities like Geelong.

We're not dreaming, we want practical solutions to the existing reality of work in regional cities like Geelong.

We're not anti-Garnaut. We also believe the situation is urgent and an Emissions Trading System is the reasonable way to go. Like Garnaut we believe in broad participation in the world solution, with petrol pricing part of it.

Like Garnaut we believe that emission-intensive, trade-essential industries are special cases, and a gradualist approach is the only way we can deal with them.

And like Garnaut we agree the neglect by the Howard government of this question has been catastrophic to the environment, the economy and industrial relations.

We're only doing what a self-respecting union always does. We represent our members' interest with ferocity of purpose and tactical skill in a national debate of searing importance.

We do not, like Tim Gooden, propose to cut out of this world-changing process. Tim Gooden should get serious about climate change. He should not just call for a debate, he should, like the AWU, be in the thick of that debate.

Up close, negotiating, doing the numbers, behaving like a responsible citizen.