You can now find the times of our upcoming zooms as well as our zoom meeting minutes on your member dashboard. This information will also be included in our email reminder for the next upcoming meeting.

Please login to your member dashboard and scroll down to "Previous Meeting Notes & Zoom Schedule". 

Please contact us at hotline@redunion.com.au if you have any issues accessing these.

Start by finding which union you need to join here.

Once you have selected the union you wish to join, click I want to join, it'll take you to the join page. Make sure to look at the price and billing frequency suitable for you.

Click enter your details, enter your email and click submit.

Now fill out your details and click continue.

A payment window will now appear, follow the prompts, enter your billing details and pay.

After you've paid, you will be redirected to a final page where you will be asked to register a password. Please register the email you just used to sign up and a strong password of your choice.

Then you're all done! Welcome aboard! 

Find your association here: https://www.redunion.com.au/

If you are a nurse or midwife in:
Queensland - Join NPAQ
NSW - Join NPAN
Victoria - Join NPAV

If you are a nurse or midwife outside of these states join NPAA.

If you are a teacher in:
Queensland - Join TPAQ
NSW - Join TPAN
Victoria - Join TPAV

If you are a teacher outside of Queensland, join TPAA.

If you are a transport worker (including aviation) anywhere in Australia, join PDAA.

If you are a doctor, other medical professional or work in the health industry anywhere in Australia, join AMPS.

If you are a Police Officer or corrective services officer (or fire fighter or SES for now) anywhere in Australia, join SOPAA.

If you are a business owner please join TBU (The Business Union).

If you are any other worker in Australia, join IWUA.

After registering your login, which you can find a guide for above, please login to your member dashboard.

Once that is done, please go to the COVID-19 Mandatory Vaccination Support section and follow the steps that are clearly written there.

Under the law, the Government cannot force someone to be vaccinated. The COVID-19 vaccine is not mandatory and individuals will maintain the option to choose not to vaccinate. However, policies around staff vaccination are the responsibility of individual employers.

What this means is that your employer can make it a condition of employment, as they have a duty to provide a safe workplace for you. Their right to impose a vaccine policy comes down to workplace health and safety. We maintain that employers have a duty to consult with their employees and risk assess when it comes to matters of health and safety. There will be allowances for anyone with a medical condition that meant they could not receive it. 

Make sure to check with your workplace about their policies and expectations. A worker who chooses not to be vaccinated may be redeployed by their employer if they face a risk of exposure to COVID-19 cases.

Red Union's legal team is always prepared to defend your workplace rights, and we will support your right to choose whether you wish to receive the vaccine or not. We have successfully fought cases in the past for members that for one reason or another, who were unable to receive a vaccination for medical reasons.

It depends, in some jurisdictions where mandates were made by a public health order carry more legal “clout” than others that don’t; NSW is covered by a PHO which puts it in another basket compared to the majority of the country, which are covered by employment directives.

PHOs are able to override many other rights and these mandates are legal. However, whether they went above and beyond the interpretation of by accusing people of serious misconduct, by not consulting or performing proper risk assessments, etc. is the breach of workplace rights that we are arguing.

Others that were put in place as an ‘employment directive’ such as QLD Health, we would say they are not lawful. We are currently fighting the QLD mandates via various public service appeals and an upcoming judicial review.

We are happy to fight for all members who are wishing to push against the mandate of the vaccine at any point, booster or one's first shot - we respect your right to be consulted on any significant workplace changes and for risk to be rationally assessed in the workplace.

At this point in time, we are planting the seeds in developing an approach to dealing with employers mandating booster shots. In the interim, please resume where you were with your risk assessment steps and the process we have outlined on our website.

If you have not commenced these steps, please do so immediately. We will keep all members posted in regard to the social campaign we are launching along with a tailored email to utilise.

At this stage almost all employers are denying any medical exemptions except for Queensland Health Employees, who can seek a medical or religious exemption.

Generally we have seen 4 types of exemptions;

• Medical - even if your GP has given you an exemption, very rare to be granted as there are very few things that allow you to be medically exempt from the vaccine, e.g. a previous anaphylactic reaction to the first vaccine, or heart related conditions
• Religious exemption - The few religious exemptions that have been granted are for Sikh,  Religious exemptions are harder to pursue as some of the heads of those particular religions have said there is no issue with the vaccines, and there is no protected factor under a human rights law, as NSW does not have a Human Rights Act.
• Other extraordinary circumstances - only applicable for QLD Health
• Temporary medical exemption - contracting COVID. Members have been telling us that they have registered their RAT test on the government health website, have taken a photo and shown their doctor to apply for an exemption that way. In some states, employers are accepting these and allowing staff back to work.

Please continue with the Risk Assessment process while you are applying for an exemption.

Sick Leave

If you are sick you can apply for Sick Leave, however the choice to do that is up to you, as it is relating to a medical condition which we cannot advise on. Your treating medical practitioner will be familiar with the process. If, after applying, you have some questions about the process that need answering or need assistance with responding, we can assist with this if it is not a pre-existing issue.

It is our goal to claim back leave for employees who use these up while being unable to work, due to a COVID vaccine requirement. 

Please note that sick leave is never included in a termination of employment pay-out, and is typically never negotiated for in a General Protections/Dismissal claim.

Annual & Long Service Leave

You can apply for Long service leave. The decision would be up to you to make, we understand people need to pay bills etc. therefore if you need financial support by all means use your entitlements. We are not financial advisors so cannot advise extensively.

It is our goal to claim back leave for employees who use these up while being unable to work, due to a COVID vaccine requirement. 

Worker Compensation

You can apply for Worker's compensation through your state's workers compensation scheme, however it will likely need to be for medical reasons which we cannot advise further on. Your treating medical practitioner will be familiar with the process. If, after applying, you have some questions about the process that need answering or need assistance with responding, we can assist with this if it is not a pre-existing issue.

In normal circumstances we believe that they should not be able to contact you while on leave, however we have seen many employers continue with disciplinary action whilst employees are on leave.

If you receive correspondence whilst on leave, please forward us a copy to hotline@redunion.com.au and we can advise you how to respond, if required.

It is a reasonable management direction to ask you for your vaccination status, you will need to advise your employer of your status if asked, we would also recommend that you add the following to your response:

"Dear [boss's name]

As per my previous email, once I have the appropriate information and have been given the risk assessment for my area of work, I believe I will be in a comfortable position to make a decision regarding the vaccine requirements.

I remain ready, willing and able to work.

Regards <your name>"

Please make sure to CC hotline@redunion.com.au in your correspondence with your employer, and forward any response you receive from them so we can advise you of the next steps.

STOOD DOWN WITHOUT PAY

As you have been stood down without pay you are likely to be issued with a show cause notice soon.

When you receive this from your employer, please forward us a copy, and use the show cause template that is available on your COVID Mandate Dashboard:

1. Log in to your member dashboard
2. Click on "COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate Issues"
3. Scroll down to "Forms', and click on "Show Cause Response"

Download the Show Cause Response template, making sure to only change the yellow highlighted sections.

Please do not edit or add to the other sections of this letter, Red Union goes through a very specific risk assessment request process, which is legally required to be supplied by your employer. Deviating from these letters can dramatically weaken your case in future.

Please send the response to your employer on the last day it is due, so as to not speed up the process to termination, and make sure to CC hotline@redunion.com.au to ensure we have the correspondence on file.

If you have been suspended for an extended period of time please get in touch with us by emailing hotline@redunion.com.au or by submitting a member support form on your dashboard so we can assist you with this.

Please make sure to check what your individual enterprise agreement/EB says, to see what applies to you specifically in regards to looking for other work, if you break your EB you will be giving your employer the opportunity to dismiss you with misconduct.

It is our belief that you are able to seek work whilst on suspension without pay, provided that you let your employer know that you have done this, and on the proviso that should you be asked to return to work, you can do so immediately.

If you are on suspension with pay, we do not advise you to seek alternative employment as this would breach your enterprise agreement.

It is a good idea to continue your registration for continuity. 

Most of the registration boards are not holding misconduct on your registration, for example in the NT staff were dismissed under ‘serious misconduct’, the teacher registration boards have advised that they will not record ‘serious misconduct’ against you for not providing your vaccination status.  

AHPRA:

At this time there is no requirement to be double vaccinated to be registered. The changes to the code of conduct are not relevant at this point for nurses and doctors.

Additionally, findings of professional misconduct, and serious professional misconduct due to not taking the vaccine will not impact your ability to register with AHPRA. When filling out the form, you can answer no to the question about conduct, performance, or health (if you only had the issue of not complying with the vaccine mandate).

We advise that you renew your registration for continuity before the 31st of May, and would like to remind you that it is tax deductible.

If you have been issued a show cause letter you can find responses here. 

If you have been issued a show cause notice, we have a template response available on the COVID-19 mandate support section of your member dashboard. If you have been directed to attend a meeting please fill out the show cause meeting form in this same location and we will organise a representative to attend with you.

If you have been terminated, we have termination form which you will need to fill out. Please login to your member dashboard, go to the COVID Mandate Support Form section, find the link to the termination form and fill it out. It is highly unlikely that your case will have successful prospects if you have not completed the risk assessment steps, so it is necessary that you complete these steps before you are terminated or issued your show-cause notice. 

Please note, if you are within the 21 days required for a General Protections Dismissal claim and would like to continue down that path, you are entitled to seek a second legal opinion. We will not be submitting these claims any more however as it has become apparent that the best legal avenue is through a GPND.

Please note the letters from stage 3 onward, including the different termination letters, appoint your union to act for you, if you are not a member, we cannot help you.

Please note, you must have completed the risk assessment request steps or our ability to help you on an individual basis with your termination or threat of termination may be limited. Please note, our group actions may still affect you however. 

You can, but it may impact your ability for us to provide you with an outcome.

It depends on what the purpose and contents of the class action are, if it steers broadly clear of what your matter would be with us; GPND focusing on failure to risk assess, failure to consult. If the class action contains anything we have assisted you with, it would mean that we wouldn’t be able to help you further. If the class action is about something else, or a different aspect of the law that we aren’t examining then you could potentially do both.

If you have requirements for vaccination for placements, unfortunately there isn’t that much that can be done at this stage. Our Risk Assessment argument is based on the fact that there is a workplace relation, and the employer owes a duty to their employees to provide them with a safe work environment which is not applicable to students.

Under the Workplace Health and Safety Act, an employer owes certain duties to their employees. The first duty is to provide employees with a safe workplace, the second, is the duty to consult employees with regard to any significant workplace changes, like mandatory vaccination.

As a part of these duties, your employer must have consulted you with regard to their directives. If you weren't consulted and have workplace health and safety concerns, you may wish to ask for a risk assessment by following the steps above.

What is a risk assessment? A risk assessment must be performed on a PCBU ie business unit basis (ward by ward, classroom by classroom etc). It must be performed by your line manager and must have assessed not only that COVID-19 is a risk but also show what your employer is offering as a solution. Your employer must look at all options (Personal Protective Equipment, Alternate Deployment, Vaccination, Rapid Anigen Testing etc) and determine the pros and cons of each. They must then have arrived at a conclusion, in this case mandatory vaccination is the conclusion. Then, they must risk assess the solution they are proposing on individual staff within the PCBU. This means they must show the working out for any risk the solution may pose to you, particularly if you have an underlying medical contraindication.

This is also why consultation is important, many employers haven't consulted with their employees, and as a result, are failing to meet a reasonable middle ground that protects you and your broader PCBU or workplace.

The initial steps may be found at one of the following locations depending on your association:

https://npaq.redunion.com.au/whsinfo

https://npaa.redunion.com.au/whsinfo

https://tpaq.redunion.com.au/whsinfo

https://tpaa.redunion.com.au/whsinfo

https://pdaa.redunion.com.au/whsinfo

https://amps.redunion.com.au/whsinfo

https://sopaa.redunion.com.au/whsinfo

https://iwua.redunion.com.au/whsinfo

Additional steps and letters may be found on the Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Support section of your member dashboard. To find your member dashboard you should go to your union's website and login.

If you have received notice from your employer that they are considering a vaccine mandate, and are offering employees a consultation period, please forward the relevant information to hotline@redunion.com.au so we can give you tailored responses based on your concerns.

Do not begin the RA process until you have received direct communication from your employer that a mandate has been put in place for your workplace. If you begin the process prematurely, it will aggravate your employer. We want to keep members employed for as long as possible.

You do not need to go through the steps as quickly as you can, you are trying to give your employer time to consider your request, and then respond accordingly.

If you are on a period of extended leave, it is a good idea to begin the risk assessment requests closer to your scheduled return to work date.

However if your mandate date is rapidly approaching, then you may need to progress through the requests with urgency.

If your employer responds and says they don’t need to complete a Risk Assessment, you can continue to the next step. If you’ve been ignored for 2 business days, it is a reasonable time to continue to the next step. 

The more time that you can give your employer to reasonably consider your requests the better.

Please make sure to CC hotline@redunion.com.au in your RA requests.

If you have completed the risk assessment steps, hold fire, you've done all you can. If you are required to send an additional letter, we will communicate this. If you are asked to attend a meeting, are issued a show cause notice, or are terminated see the relevant section below.

Read our FAQ's for directed workplace meetings here.

If you have been called in for a meeting, in addition to reading the above guide, please fill out the show cause form (if you haven't already) on the COVID-19 mandate support section of your member dashboard so we can organise a response or meeting attendee.

Please note the letters from stage 3 onward, including the different termination letters, appoint your union to act for you, if you are not a member, we cannot help you.

STOOD DOWN WITHOUT PAY

If you have been issued a show cause letter you can find responses here. 

If you have been issued a show cause notice, we have a template response available on the COVID-19 mandate support section of your member dashboard. If you have been directed to attend a meeting please fill out the show cause meeting form in this same location and we will organise a representative to attend with you.

If you have been terminated, we have termination form which you will need to fill out. Please login to your member dashboard, go to the COVID Mandate Support Form section, find the link to the termination form and fill it out. It is highly unlikely that your case will have successful prospects if you have not completed the risk assessment steps, so it is necessary that you complete these steps before you are terminated or issued your show-cause notice. 

Please note, if you are within the 21 days required for a General Protections Dismissal claim and would like to continue down that path, you are entitled to seek a second legal opinion. We will not be submitting these claims any more however as it has become apparent that the best legal avenue is through a GPND.

Please note the letters from stage 3 onward, including the different termination letters, appoint your union to act for you, if you are not a member, we cannot help you.

Please note, you must have completed the risk assessment request steps or our ability to help you on an individual basis with your termination or threat of termination may be limited. Please note, our group actions may still affect you however. 

Many Queensland Health nurses are still waiting for their vaccination exemption to be processed and we hear that this could take months in some cases.

There are some, however, who have had their exemptions denied and are now wondering what the next step is. 

There are new provisions for internal leave for discretionary pay and how our members can access paid leave while you await the outcome of your exemption request.

In most cases, we believe members will be eligible for this special discretionary paid leave inclusive of your shift allowances.

You will need to submit a separate application each week because the discretionary payments will only apply until your application is processed. This could be some time.

Please download this Leave Form, complete it and submit it to your Line Manager and local HR for processing. The leave category is “Other – Discretionary – Vaccination Exemption”. Please do not delay this action.

Please complete an exemption denial form, you will then be sent instructions to follow via email, which will include an example of what Red Union will send to your Hospital Health Service's Chief Executive.

If you have not submitted the exemption denial form, please do so, to ensure your case is tracked correctly:

1. Log in to your member dashboard
2. Click on "COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate Issues"
3. Scroll down to "Forms', and click on "Exemption Denied"

Once you have submitted the form, please complete the emailed instructions.

Please let us know if you have issues receiving these instructions

If you have received a notice that your exemption review has been denied please complete a second exemption denial form, to ensure your case is tracked correctly:

1. Log in to your member dashboard
2. Click on "COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate Issues"
3. Scroll down to "Forms', and click on "Exemption Denied"

This will escalate your case to our legal team, who will then contact you and send you some forms to complete.

Please read and follow these steps to respond to your notice to Show Cause:

1. Log in to your member dashboard
2. Click on "COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate Issues"
3. Scroll down to "Forms', and click on "Show Cause Response"

Download the QLD Health Suspension Letter (Show Cause Response) template, making sure to only change the yellow highlighted sections.

Please do not edit or add to the other sections of this letter, Red Union goes through a very specific risk assessment request process, which is legally required to be supplied by your employer. Deviating from these letters can dramatically weaken your case in future.

Please send the response to your employer on the last day it is due, so as to not speed up the process to termination, and make sure to CC hotline@redunion.com.au to ensure we have the correspondence on file.

To respond to your 2nd notice to show cause, you can either resend your first show cause response letter (QLD Health Suspension/ Show Cause), or send the generic response which is available on the member dashboard:

1. Log in to your member dashboard
2. Click on "COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate Issues"
3. Scroll down to "Forms', and click on "Show Cause Response"

Download the Show Cause Response template, making sure to only change the yellow highlighted sections.

Please do not edit or add to the other sections of this letter. Red Union goes through a very specific risk assessment request process, which is legally required to be supplied by your employer. Deviating from these letters could dramatically weaken your case.

Please send the response to your employer on the last day it is due, so as to not speed up the process to termination, and make sure to CC hotline@redunion.com.au to ensure we have the correspondence on file.

HED/21 Example:

“I acknowledge receipt of your correspondence dated 24 March 2022 in which you purport to make a Stage 3 grievance in relation to the implementation of HED12/21.

As you are aware HED12/21 was implemented approximately 6 months ago on 11 September 2021.

The purpose of the employee grievance procedure in clause 7.2 of your Award is to promote the prompt resolution of grievances and to ensure efficiency, effectiveness and equity in the workplace. 

Noting it has been approximately 6 months since HED12/21 was implemented, I am instructed that the delegate has determined that no action will be taken in respect of a purported grievance regarding HED 12/21 received after 28 February 2022. This is consistent with the purpose and objective of the employee grievance procedure. 

Should you be dissatisfied with this outcome you may refer the matter to the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission. “

We are aware of this correspondence being sent to QLD Health members. There is no need to provide a response at this stage.

As your exemption appeal was lodged with a Queensland Industrial Relations Commission and you have sent a response to your show cause letter, you have done all you can for now.

Please keep us updated of any further correspondence between you and your employer and if you have any other questions or concerns do not hesitate to contact us.