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Retail work is getting harder, and it's taking a real toll. Across Australia, our members in retail are facing increasing stress from understaffing, excessive workloads, and customer abuse. These conditions are creating serious risks to work as mental health and wellbeing.

As temperatures rise during Queensland’s hot summer months, staying safe and healthy at work becomes an important occupational health priority. Wherever you work, understanding your rights, your employer’s responsibilities, and how to recognise heat related illnesses can make major differences to your wellbeing.

Paid Parental Leave is one of the most important workplace rights available to new parents. It allows families to take time away from work to care for a newborn or newly adopted child without losing their financial stability or job security. These rights exist because working people and the union movement pushed hard to win them, and the SDA continues to protect and improve them.

Are you tired of being a casual employee? Sick of wondering if you’ll have any hours next week, not making plans ‘incase’ you get offered a shift - or not having enough job security to get a loan? Well, if you’ve been at your current workplace for more than six months, you may be eligible to convert to permanent employment. This process is called the ‘Employee Choice Pathway”, and it gives you the opportunity to approach your employer about becoming a permanent employee with a defined process they need to follow to approve or deny your request.

A study has recently been published by Professor Gary Mortimer titled ‘Reducing frontline employee directed verbal abuse: A multi-study approach, which examines the efficacy of the SDA’s ‘No One Deserves a Serve’ underbadges.’

Penalty rates are fair compensation for working outside ordinary hours. They recognise that you’re working when most others in the community are not and they make up a significant part of the take home pay for many SDA members who rely on them.

This year, the SDA Queensland Branch joined other unions to assemble outside Amazon’s Distribution Centre in Lytton to protest their abysmal safety record for the international ‘Make Amazon Pay’ campaign.

Part of the social contract of superannuation is that you defer your wages, and you pay less tax as a result. And part of the tax system is that if you earn more, you pay more tax. But the two tax systems haven’t kept up with each other, undermining the social contract.