Bigger, Stronger: CWU Central Branch

November 2, 2022

A historic new era for our Union has just commenced with the Fair Work Commission having now formally approving the merger of the NSW/ACT, QLD and SA/NT Branches of your Union.

Ahead of this change, we surveyed members on our plan. We were pleased that 85% said they supported the merger and that valuable member feedback was able to be collected – both positive and negative. Your important feedback significantly guided our planning and directly shaped the development of this new structure.

Local representation, centralised efficiency, growth

Your current local Officials will remain accessible to provide you with the personal representation you require, locally. At the same time, modern technology brings us together and the systems we are implementing will ensure the availability of all of our Officials to assist you with your basic enquiries, without delay, and allows us to harness that collective knowledge and experience to collaborate on large-scale matters and major campaigns more effectively.

Similarly, technology has allowed us to streamline our centralised administration, accounts and finance operations – freeing up valuable resources to strategically targeting existing areas requiring improvement, pursue growth opportunities in new and emerging industry sections and allows us to communicate with you on urgent and important matters more quickly – and with one voice.

Local accountability, with a national voice

Importantly, your local Officials will remain accountable to you. From the next scheduled elections, members across the entire Branch will have the opportunity to elect the Central Branch Secretary, whilst members will continue to directly elect their specific local full-time Officials and honorary representatives in their respective states and territories.

And while the Secretaries of the former QLD and SA/NT Branches have transitioned to Assistant Secretary positions in our CWU Central Branch structure, they will be responsible for leading organising and advocacy efforts in their respective states and territories. The Union’s Rules also ensures they will continue to be an important representative voice for members in those regions on the most senior decision-making bodies of your Union; the CWU National Divisional Executive, and the wider CEPU National Council.

Welcome to your new Union

In the coming weeks you will notice more changes as we continue to rebrand and continue bedding in new processes. You will also receive a new membership card, along with our inaugural issue of The Communicator magazine – your Branch journal, where we will introduce you to all of your Central Branch Officials and catch you up on what’s happening across your industries.

Your new card will allow you to access a massive collection of additional value-add benefits, including $3761 per year of potential savings on groceries, petrol, shopping, dining, travel and leisure.

Many of those benefits are accessible online right now, without waiting for your card to be delivered. You can login to the member benefits portal by navigating to the the lifestyle and leisure benefits section of our website. To access the portal, simply enter your membership number as your username, and your surname as your password.

Please note: our administration team is hard at work in the background ensuring a seamless transition of our membership systems into our centralised operations and as part of this transition, your membership number may have changed. If we have your email address on file, we have emailed this information directly to you.

If we don’t yet have your email address, subscribe using the link on our home page.

Welcome, once again. We’re excited to take this next step in our Union’s evolution, with you.

We are confident that together, we will build a bigger, stronger and more influential Union for workers across our industries.

Should you require any further information, please contact your Branch Officials on (02) 9893 7822 when calling from NSW or the ACT, (07) 3255 0440 from QLD or (08) 8443 7389 from SA or the NT.

Yours faithfully,