Ginninderra News - June 2004

Happy Ending to Totalcare Story

Wayne celebrates with Totalcare workers

Years of insecurity for Totalcare workers are finally at an end, with around 350 workers now guaranteed employment with the ACT Government.

In December last year, the Assembly passed legislation securing the future for workers and by May all but a handful had transferred back.

It has been a long and difficult fight, but the hard work of ACT Legislative Assembly Speaker Wayne Berry has paid off.

Too often in recent years we have seen workers thrown on the scrap heap as employers cut their workforce for productivity gains. Unfortunately governments have fallen into that trap as well.

The Totalcare uncertainty began under the former Government, which transferred public sector workers into Totalcare and began downsizing and outsourcing their positions.

By the time the Government changed, half the jobs were gone.

In opposition Wayne campaigned for the Totalcare workers’ jobs and after the election he kept up his campaign to turn things around. In spite of some initial setbacks and some tense times he stuck by the workers and the end result was they will be given back their jobs and once again be directly employed by the ACT Government.

When the legislation was finally passed in the Assembly Wayne went out to Totalcare and cracked a bottle of champagne to celebrate with the workers.

“It was a long campaign over many years, but worth it when you see the result,” Wayne said.

“I gained an understanding of what these workers do and what they were going through and that convinced me that I should not give up. I had to prove to these workers that they could trust a Labor politician to stand up for what we had promised before the last election.

“Job security is the biggest threat to most ordinary working people and to play a part in helping some workers have some job security is one of the most rewarding things I have done in politics,” Wayne said.