Unions hold fee increases, take wage subsidy as redundancies hit

Thu, 23 Apr 2020

Two of the country’s biggest private-sector unions have suspended fee increases and claimed the government wage subsidy, as a wave of redundancies has eaten into their membership. Both E tu and First Union have deferred scheduled membership fee increases due to take effect on April 1, to be reviewed in three months’ time. E tu national secretary Bill Newson said membership fees were kept as low as possible; from a fulltime fee of $7.83 per week, the union gets $6.80 after GST is taken out. The part-time fee is $3.92 for those working less...

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