JOE DE BRYUEN HAS MISUSED HIS POSITION AS FEDERAL SECRETARY OF THE SDA IN MAKING COMMENTS IN RELATION TO GAY RELATIONSHIPS

JOE DE BRYUEN HAS MISUSED HIS POSITION AS FEDERAL SECRETARY OF THE SDA IN MAKING COMMENTS IN RELATION TO GAY RELATIONSHIPS

Mr. DeBryen should keep his personal prejudices and religious beliefs to himself and not use his position of SDA leadership for outrageous comments.  Gay relationships are a private matter as are heterosexual relationships and neither group needs outside interference.

The SDA is made up of many hundreds of thousands members with differing lifestyles, points of view, religious beliefs, political beliefs and we have the right to these individual beliefs.

Mr. De Bryen has been making public statements of late condemning the concept of gay marriage (gay union) .  These lifestyle decisions should be left to individuals as they do not impinge on others.  The private part of our blog has received numerous complaints in relation to Mr. De Bryen’s statements.  He should be aware that there are a number of gay people who are members of the SDA as there are in all parts of society. 

The RRR SDA GROUP  believes that all people have the right to individual views but does promote equality irrespective of age, colour, gender or sexual preference. 

We are extremely disappointed with the other members of the SDA executive, staff and reps, some of which are enlightened and non-prejudicial in nature.  Why do you allow Joe De Bryen to misuse his position in the SDA.  Your voices have been silent on the issue which gives the impression that all the SDA leadership think as Joe De Bryen does.

Mr. De Bryen’s public statements that have been publicized, aired on radio, screened on T.V. are a discredit to the SDA.  He should be aware that he is becoming the rent-a-mouth being used by the media whenever they need negative comments.

There are a number of petitions circulating in different states, in particular, Queensland, by a group of students promoting individual freedoms and condemning Joe De Bruyen.

The blogsite is available for all members to use, in this case, a message to the executive to restrict themselves to industrial issues and not personal, private matters.

Should we join the National Union of Workers (NUW)?

Under the heading of Unions Achieving, there is a newsletter which is being distributed by the National Union of Workers, who are trying to improve the conditions and payrates for their members at Woolworths.

You will also find an open letter addressed to the secretary of the NUW. We would invite all our members to make comment on the proposal.

Please click the below link:

http://reformsda.blogspot.com/2010/06/other-unions-achieving.html

Coles negotiations have commenced

VICTORIAN ELECTION HAS BEEN HELD - other states soon to follow

Interstate Elections - WA

Please use this post for comments and information relating to the Western Australian election.

Interstate Elections - TAS

Please use this post for comments and information relating to the Tasmanian election.

Interstate Elections - NT

Please use this post for comments and information relating to the Northern Territory election.

Interstate Elections - SA

Please use this post for comments and information relating to the South Australian election.

Interstate Elections - NSW

Please use this post for comments and information relating to the New South Wales election.

Interstate Elections - ACT

Please use this post for comments and information relating to the ACT election.

Interstate Elections - QLD

Please use this post for comments and information relating to the Queensland election.

The Election is on!

 Nominations opened 1st July, 2010 and will close morning of 16th July, 2010.

Refer to the Election section for further information

Other Unions Achieving

Coles National Agreement

Negotiations for the Coles National Agreement have now commenced.
Follow its progress.

Who Deserves the Credit?

What do you call a person, group or association that takes credit for other peoples work?

Downloads

Election Nominations and Candidates Profiles

This post is for potential candidates to post information about themselves.
Please post a comment below with the relevant information.
We will notify the election dates once they have been announced.
It should be noted that State and Territory nomination and election dates will be advertised by the Australian Electoral Commission in the major newspaper of each State.
Further information should be available at the AEC website:
http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/AEC_Services/Industrial_Elections/index.htm 

We are having a difficulty overcoming SDA censorship.  There are approximately 300,000 of us members.  We all have family and friends, some working in the media.  We would ask that you use whatever contacts you have to raise the profile of the site.  What we are attempting is a real David & Goliath situation and for candidates to have any hope of success they need to reach as many members as possible.

We are not attempting to influence how people vote, only providing an opportunity for members to express their democratic rights.

We would hope all candidates, both sitting and potential, let the membership know their plans for the future in relation to restoring a decent wage and conditions.

SDA News Bulletin

SDA News Bulletin - Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party

Enterprise Agreement Survey 2010

COLES Enterprise Agreement Survey 2010

Shop assistants sidelined as Vic ALP turns corner

Read this article about the SDA in the ALP

Report on SDA/McDonald's agreement

News Limited (Herald Sun/The Australian) has published an article on the proposed SDA/McDonalds agreement.  The article says that 'McDONALD'S has been referred to the workplace watchdog for allegedly underpaying some workers after the industrial umpire threw out an enterprise agreement covering its 80,000 employees.'

You can see the full article here

DONOVAN LASHES OUT

Michael Donovan, State Secretary of the SDA, is presently circulating a news bulletin titled "UNSIGNED BULLETINS".  Below is our response:


Firstly, the RRR SDA GROUP is not affiliated in any way with any trade union or organisation.  It is not there to promote itself or individuals but to encourage fellow SDA members to take an interest in the unions' future.

What do we want?

RESTORE SDA

The RRR SDA Group is committed to restoring conditions of work that have been given away by the current leadership of the SDA (Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association), that is:

Federal Secretary - Joe de Bruyn

State Secretary - Michael Donovan

This means that fellow shop assistants have to stand for elected positions and lead the fight to regain conditions that have been lost:


1.    Restore a decent wage

2.    Restore the casual loading to time + 25%

3.     Remove the clause in the SDA agreement that gives employers the right to reduce part-time hours

4.     Regain some control about compulsory hours that is having devastating effects on peoples’ personal relationships, family lives and quality of life in general

5.     Remove compulsory work prior to 7am and after 6pm Monday to Friday

6.     Re-introduce voluntary work on Saturdays and Sundays

Welcome to Revolt Regain Restore SDA

We hope you will use this site to help restore our union

RRR SDA Group would like to acknowledge the concerns raised in the comments section:

1. The Group is Victoria based but is for the use of all States and Territories.  We would ask that those people who have contacts interstate if they could send them copies of the Newsletter and encourage them to visit our website and inform fellow workers of the site address.

2. The Group is approximately 3 months old and the blog site 2 weeks old.  Visits to the site are so numerous we will no longer refer to ourselves as a small group

3. Some of the matters raised on the comments section have caused great concern, the one relating to compulsory night and weekend work is more common than what you think and this is one of many reasons that led to the formation of the RRR SDA Group.


When weekends and nights were voluntary and the penalties were still in place there were always sufficient number of people who were glad to work nights and weekends for the additional pay.  Since the removal of the Saturday rate and reduction of the Sunday rate and evening rates and the Employers right under the SDA Agreement to compulsory roster has caused great hardship with family life and personal relationships.  There are instances where the rostering of these hours has been used as punishment or to encourage people to leave as a form of wage reduction.  Most SDA Agreements have “grandfathering” clauses – which is the ability for employers to put on new people at a lesser rate of pay than the current workforce.

There appears to be a little bit of impatience being expressed by contributors to the site – the timetable to remove Mr. Donovan and his associates is governed by the next election.  We need to maintain our ongoing campaign to make members aware that there are alternatives.

Sometime in the future those who are prepared to take on the task and attempt to restore basic rights and conditions will need to start their campaigns explaining what they stand for and generating support which eventually will be a vote for a new beginning.
We can’t stress how important it is that the membership are empowered to make changes.
This can only happen if everyone is made aware of alternatives.

Donovan in the past has not missed an opportunity to promote himself and has a bad habit of claiming credit for achievements actually won by the Union movement in general and the ACTU.  One day we hope that the SDA will be welcomed at the Victorian Trades Hall Council.
There was a recent newsletter where he was claiming credit for Christmas Day public holiday, the introduction of industry superannuation –( a large number of Unions had super at least 10 years prior to the SDA), maternity leave – he has no right to claim credit which actually belongs to the ACTU and the Union movement in general.

Has anyone else noticed that one of the enticements to join the SDA is to get discount products? How does a union ever get into a position where there is cross promotion with employers to encourage membership with the SDA and the SDA to promote purchase of their products?  The products that the employers and the SDA promote quite often are beyond our reach as our wages are so substandard we can’t afford to take advantage of what’s on offer.

I would recommend reading of the article on site titled “Shop Assistants Sidelined”.  Even the most ardent supporter of the SDA would find the information alarming.

RRR SDA GROUP.