The Perrottet Government is attacking the rights of people who caught COVID-19 while at work, and the union movement, including the PSA/CPSU NSW, is determined to stop them.

What’s at stake?

In 2020, workers in particular industries (including most PSA/CPSU NSW members) who contracted COVID-19 were automatically eligible for workers’ compensation, as it was presumed they had been exposed to the pandemic while at work.

Late last year, the Perrottet Government decided it would remove this presumption. It ignored subsequent protests and in the past week used the last days of its favourable numbers in Parliament to hastily usher its bill through the Lower House.

This proposed change will make it all but impossible for people to prove they contracted COVID-19 in the course of their employment and therefore be eligible for workers’ compensation.

This desperate move was made despite the fact the NSW Upper House is still examining the proposed effects of this change on the state’s frontline workers, including reviewing a submission from the PSA/CPSU NSW.

The union movement is urging the Upper House to throw out this change to your workers’ compensation protections when it is introduced next week.

What can you do?

Tell politicians this is just not on. Unions NSW has developed an online tool to email MPs urging them to vote against this attack on the rights of frontline workers. You can find the tool HERE.

There will also be a rally behind Parliament House at 8am Tuesday, 22 February. Protesters will assemble along Hospital Road to noisily remind politicians and staff members arriving at work that attacking frontline workers’ compensation is just not on.

Together we can fight and defeat this bill.