General News
10 May, 2025
United after ALP wins
ABOUT 1000 Cairns workers of all industries united to rally for better working conditions, increased wages and equality at the 2025 Labour Day march.
Workers, local unions and their families gathered once again to celebrate the victories of workers in Australia and the still ongoing fights for better wages, workloads and conditions at the FNQ Council of Unions Labour Day march and family day on Monday.
The march departed from the Fig Tree Playground by Hemingway’s Brewery at 9.30am up to the Esplanade and back. This year the march was led by the Transport Workers Union.
Bronwen Forster, a librarian at James Cook University and a member of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), said it was important to participate every year and make workers feel supported.
“We’re here to celebrate the unions and the fact that the unions have supported workers across Australia for a very long time and in that time we’ve had a lot of wins like improving the rights of workers and our working conditions,” she said.
“So it’s a celebration of that and an acknowledgement that there’s still work to be done to improve our working life to ensure that we’re not exploited.
“In our case, most universities are entering a period of enterprise bargaining, so we’re mainly looking at improving our conditions and workloads are one of those elements and a decent pay rise given the current conditions.
“A day like this is very important to let workers know that unions have their backs.”
Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union member Matthew Richardson said that as one of the work industries that saw most exploitation and low retention rates, there was still a lot of things to fight for in this day and age.
“We’re here to stand up for the nurses and midwives and show some solidarity and make sure that, as a collective, our voices are heard and we can get the respect and fight towards retaining strong employment opportunities for nurses across the state,” he said.
“We’re currently negotiating at the state enterprise agreement so we’re trying to make sure that we have a strong voice and the state government knows that we are standing together to maintain nation leading wages and conditions for nurses in Queensland.
“There’s, unfortunately, a lot of fear in the community about standing up and letting your voice be heard, because there’s not always that security in employment. Events like this are important to show people that we can stand together and have a collective security and fight for the conditions that are fair.”
After the march, the workers and their families enjoyed a family fun day with a sausage sizzle, games for the kids and live music.
