Social and community services workers at Neami have raised a flag of resistance during a “vote no” campaign in an enterprise agreement ballot.

Neami, a mental health support services provider, employs around 800 workers across five states. Its management has never before had to content with a vocal or unionised workforce, but things are changing.

Recent enterprise agreement bargaining ended abruptly when Neami left the negotiating table to force its substandard offer to a vote. When management walked away, major items remained unresolved including pay grade classifications.  

With a historically compliant workforce that is scattered across dozens of sites in multiple states, the strategy of sidestepping the union and going straight to a vote could have been expected to produce an easy win for Neami.

But a call to “vote no” was formulated by a small and newly formed network of Australian Services Union delegates. Meg (not her real name) is a Melbourne-based Neami worker and ASU activist who began developing a network of contacts at service sites across Victoria.

“Often social and community workers find it so easy to advocate and fight for consumers, we should feel that same passion advocating for our rights”, Meg told Red Flag. “Someone needs to be brave enough to be the first to stand up.”

The response was encouraging. Meg found workers at every Neami site in Victoria who were willing to pass on information about the agreement negotiations. In the process, union membership and the number of workplace delegates increased.

“At times I was worried about how vocal I was and how much I was agitating, but in the end if you don’t take a risk, you will never receive the reward. Plus I felt confident that I had the ASU behind me”, she said.

Recognising that the “no” vote needed to win nationally, Meg and other delegates began cold-calling Neami sites in other states to get in contact with workers there.  

“We realised that if we didn’t get organised and get as many people as possible involved and talking about the issues, the company would steamroll us”, she said. Their efforts snowballed quickly, and staff from across Australia were soon contacting Victorian delegates to express their outrage at management’s proposed agreement. These people started agitating in their sites and, again, union numbers went up.

When the ballot results were released in October, the outcome was bittersweet for Meg. With 42 percent voting no, the company got its agreement over the line.

“It was sad because we lost the vote, but also so inspiring knowing that, with only three active delegates in Victoria, we were able to get hundreds of people to vote no.

 “And I believe that many workers’ eyes are open now to the strategic and underhanded way Neami operated, so I think the good will bubble has burst”, she said.

At Neami, having a small group of workers take the lead meant that others also developed the confidence to campaign against management’s offer. The result shows that if workers in this sector get more organised, there is an opportunity to have some real wins.