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 About Us  About Unions NSWAbout UnionsWho's WhoInformation Centre What's Going On? Annual Reports   
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Deirdre Mahoney - Special Projects Officer
Migrant worker diversity activitiesSpecial Projects Officer, Deirdre Mahoney, is primarily responsible for promoting productive diversity principles in the workplace and developing the skills needed to maximise the diversity dividend. The year ended on a high note for unions interested in organising around their migrant members. Deirdre, in conjunction with Trade Union Training Australia's Jill Biddington, wrote and conducted two one-day training courses designed to help unions become more aware of the issues facing migrant workers, and develop strategies to help them become more involved within the union, and in the workplace. Participants from unions including the Australian Meat Industry Employees Union, the Australian Workers Union , the Communications, Electrical, Plumbing Union (Postal Division), the Community and Public Sector Union, the Finance Sector Union, the Municipal Employees Union, the Nurses Association and the Public Service Association, as well as the Migrant Employment Taskforce, will now form the basis of a union diversity network, and their projects will be highlighted on Workers Online. The course was made possible due to special project funding from the NSW Department of Education and Training, which also funds Deirdre's position. The special project funding had provided for the production of a diversity manual, and training around that manual. The Productive Diversity in the Workplace program is to be expanded in 2000, with two officers to be appointed in the Private Sector and Local Government areas. A part-time position has been filled to run the productive diversity network, which has its first meeting after nearly a two-year absence scheduled for March 2000. Unfortunately, Labor Council did not receive a grant applied for under Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA'S) Community Harmony program, but the Ethnic Communities' Council (ECC) of NSW did, and consequently the Labor Council and ECC have begun to develop a partnership. The first step in the partnership was the `Social Wellbeing' conference, which Deirdre organised in conjunction with officers at the ECC and NSW Council of Social Service. At the conference, the three partners resolved to press for a social audit to map, among other things, the community's expectations in terms of the provision of government services to groups such as those with a non-English speaking background and Indigenous Australians. Labor Council is continuing to work on a joint project with Australian Business Ltd in the Villawood area, working on instigating programs whereby migrant workers' overseas-gained skills are better utilised in the workplace. Deirdre has also been organising migrant workers in commercial laundries in Sydney's inner-west with the AWU. In October, Deirdre attended a productive diversity conference in Melbourne. The conference brought together the public and private sector, government bodies and trade unions to look at the impact of deregulation of the labour market on migrant workers. Apart from a submission to the Immigration Minister, Phillip Ruddock on Migration and Humanitarian Programs, and being a regular contributor to Workers Online, with articles on the politics of unions in Zimbabwe and America, reconciliation, diversity, and East Timor, Deirdre has continued speaking engagements to expand community links. These include giving the keynote address to the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Migrant Employment Taskforce, addressing migrants at St George Careers Development Centre, in Hurstville, and addressing the Public Service Association's Women's Council, on the union's 100th Anniversary. Deirdre and Industrial Officer Chris Christodoulou have arranged a program of presentations to Local Councils next year to promote the Unions 2000 job network to migrant workers. Gay and lesbian workers' activitiesDeirdre, in consultation with affiliates and individual union members, wrote the Labor Council's submission to the De Facto Relationships Amendment Bill 1998, which would allow gay and lesbian couples the same legal rights as heterosexual couples throughout NSW. In February, at the 1999 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Fair Day, she organised a petition of 2200 signatures in support of the Bill. The petition was presented to MLC Jan Burnswood at the NSW Upper House Standing Committee on Social Issues, together with a gay and lesbian worker, talking about discrimination in the workplace. Deirdre also prepared a questionnaire on gay and lesbian discrimination, again to support the passage of the Bill. Labor Council affiliates also marched in the 1999 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade held on 27 February. Deirdre organised for union members to attend focus group sessions at The Australian Centre for Lesbian and Gay Research and the report from this research, The Pink Ceiling is too Low, was launched in December by Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) President, Jennie George. Although the report contained grim news for unions (only a tiny percentage of the 900 interviewed approached their unions for help when they experienced harassment, although almost half of them were union members) Jennie acknowledged the work being done by the NSW Labor Council. Deirdre and Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) member Ruth Pollard are working with the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby to produce a leaflet, Your Rights at Work, for gay and lesbian workers. The leaflet will be launched at the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Fair Day to be held on 20 February, 2000. Deirdre has also continued her work with the AIDS Council of NSW, selling red ribbons to affiliates for World AIDS Day, December 1 1999. Guest speaker Robert Griew, Chief Executive Officer of the AIDS Council of NSW, came to Labor Council to thank affiliates and continue the message that AIDS continues to kill, and we need to work together. Indigenous workers' activitiesDeirdre has been active in organising around Indigenous workers' issues, both federally (she is on the ACTU committee formed after the Lorne decision in 1998 to develop an Indigenous industrial strategy) and within NSW. As a member of the NSW Sorry Day Committee, Deirdre and a number of affiliates attended a service at St Stephen's Uniting Church in Sydney on 26 May to mark the Journey of Healing which began at Uluru on 5 May 1999. Unions marched to the Botanic Gardens to attend the inauguration of a Remembrance Garden to the Stolen Generation. The garden will be populated with plants native to Sydney before 1788. Deirdre also took part in the Forging a New Relationship seminar in June at the State Library, organised by Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR). This was held one month before the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation began consultations on its draft Document of Reconciliation. She has continued to build Labor Council's networks with Indigenous organisations, including the Anti-Discrimination Board's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander network meetings, the Illawarra inter-agency and, following the NSW Department of Industrial Relations' launch of its aboriginal employment policy, liaising with the Department to work together on indigenous employment issues. Women's activitiesDeirdre wrote the Labor Council's submission to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's Pregnancy at Work Inquiry in February 1999, after holding focus groups with affiliates and individual members. Labor Council recommended: an immediate urgent second inquiry be held into return-to-work and related issues, education programs, Codes of Pregnancy similar to NSW's to be introduced everywhere, penalties, no exemptions and a one-stop-shop booklet to be produced. The final report, Pregnant and Productive, was released in August 1999, and relied heavily on the evidence in the Labor Council submission. Deirdre also organised affiliates to attend the International Women's Day march, rally and go girl! Festival in March; organised a cocktail party at the State Library for 11 August 1999 to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the first Federal Decision on Equal Pay and organised the Annual Union Women's Dinner, held on the South Steyne ferry at Darling Harbour on 13 October. Deirdre represented Labor Council from April to October on a TAFE Steering Committee reviewing and developing new courses for women (especially applicable to indigenous women and women from a non-English speaking background) and was elected onto the board of the Working Women's Centre in December 1999. Deirdre's other responsibilities:
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