Mind Australia social and community services workers held a stop-work meeting on 30 January to plan the next move in their enterprise agreement campaign.

Australian Services Union members have been bargaining with Mind – one of Victoria’s largest community sector employers – for nearly two years. “The thing about this is we only want what is fair and right, but they are making us fight for it”, explains Carmel.

Mind management has refused to participate in conciliation at the Fair Work Commission and has not met with workers and their union since September 2013.

While management’s obstinacy has angered workers, there’s no sign that they will buckle under the pressure. Union membership has grown by 50 percent since bargaining started, and in a feat unprecedented in the sector, workers have rejected management-backed proposed agreements in three separate votes.

Central to the dispute is management’s attempt to remove rostered days off and strip 12 days’ paid leave per year from every full-time worker. Lead delegate Adam Bottomley sums up the approach that has held Mind workers together so far: “Our united resistance has fought off most of the company’s attacks, but they are still after our RDOs. This campaign has proven that workers don’t get what they deserve; they only get what they fight for.”