Give workers their time back! New campaign for 5 weeks’ leave   :)
24 September 2026
Finance Sector Union

Unpaid work
Unpaid overtime has quietly become the new normal for Australian workers, including in the finance sector.   :(

88% of workers are regularly working beyond their paid hours, with workers doing an average of 7.8 hours of unpaid work every week. That’s more than 11 weeks of free work every year – worth almost $22,000 in lost wages.

Unions NSW have launched a new campaign to give workers their time back.

Will you sign the Unions NSW petition calling for changes to give workers their time back?

Specifically, union members are calling on the NSW and Australian Governments to:

Increase annual leave to 5 weeks
Give NSW workers the same number of public holidays as workers in other states
For many workers, working for free is no longer an occasional request. It’s becoming an expectation – and finance workers will understand this all too well.

According to a new Unions NSW report:

77% believe their workplace relies on them doing unpaid overtime.
78% fear their career or employment would be negatively affected if they refused.
75% regularly work unpaid overtime on weekends.
63% say their workplace doesn’t even have a formal overtime policy.
At the same time, new technologies like AI are changing the way we work. Workers are being asked to do more, faster, with productivity gains too often translating into more work – rather than more time back.

Working for free should never be the price of keeping your job.

Also - companies run on a skeleton staff - then sack more people.

It means that everyone is behind the 8 ball - under stress -
then you are encouraged to do unpaid overtime to make up
for the resources your company took away.

The companies can all go to hell -
I will never work for a company ever again - by choice.

Looks like the union idea of 5 weeks leave is well justified.   :(

whiteknight wrote on Sep 27^th, 2026 at 6:07pm:

Increase annual leave to 5 weeks Give NSW workers the same number of public holidays as workers in other states For many workers, working for free is no longer an occasional request. It’s becoming an expectation – and finance workers will understand this all too well.

And increased costs of employment, Funny how the Greens never factor that. Somehow they assume the employers will simply absorb the extra cost. 8-)

Australian industries and even small Companies or Businesses have crashed and burned from Unionism.

I wonder if bad management has anything to do with it.   :(

whiteknight wrote on Sep 27^th, 2026 at 6:50pm:

I wonder if bad management has anything to do with it.   :(

Nope. Labour costs are too high!
Industries can't compete with overseas competitors.
Australia is weak.

whiteknight wrote on Sep 27^th, 2026 at 6:50pm:

I wonder if bad management has anything to do with it.   :(

What do you understand about fixed costs, non-fixed costs? 8-)

whiteknight wrote on Sep 27^th, 2026 at 6:29pm:

Looks like the union idea of 5 weeks leave is well justified.   :(

6 weeks is more realistic.

Hell why not make it 52 weeks. 8-)

Well said greeggerypeccary, also maybe an extra public holiday, might be a good idea.  Australia has far too few public holidays.   :(

People have a right to belong to a union.  I want my conditions to be union negotiated.   :(

Lifetime security on the beach and in tent cities!  That's the future for you!  Once the robots take over and the usual idiots who cannot plan effectively can't work out that there is no profit in a society where people don't profit from work etc.

No general prosperity - no real profit for anyone...

whiteknight wrote on Sep 27^th, 2026 at 7:24pm:

Well said greeggerypeccary, also maybe an extra public holiday, might be a good idea.  Australia has far too few public holidays.

Australia has 9 Public holidays. The world average is 10.25. How many more do you want? And you know what averages mean, there are plenty with less. 8-)

whiteknight wrote on Sep 27^th, 2026 at 6:29pm:

Looks like the union idea of 5 weeks leave is well justified.   :(

As a shift worker then broken shift worker whose roster involved working most weekends & public holidays I was getting 5 weeks annual leave from back in 1982 until I retired in 2019.

So White Knight are the Unions going to go for 6 weeks annual leave for those shift workers who work similarly to what I did for all those years?

If not then I would say NO to an extra week for other non shift workers.

Jasin wrote on Sep 27^th, 2026 at 6:45pm:

Australian industries and even small Companies or Businesses have crashed and burned from Unionism.

BS - more like poor business models.

greggerypeccary wrote on Sep 27^th, 2026 at 7:20pm:

whiteknight wrote on Sep 27th, 2026 at 6:29pm: Looks like the union idea of 5 weeks leave is well justified.   :( 6 weeks is more realistic.

So then you'd agree to 7 weeks for shift workers whose rosters involve majority weekends & public holidays?

They've been getting 5 weeks annual leave for the last 44 years or so - whilst non shift workers got only 4 weeks.

Gnads wrote on Sep 28^th, 2026 at 4:01pm:

greggerypeccary wrote on Sep 27th, 2026 at 7:20pm: whiteknight wrote on Sep 27th, 2026 at 6:29pm: Looks like the union idea of 5 weeks leave is well justified.   :( 6 weeks is more realistic. So then you'd agree to 7 weeks for shift workers whose rosters involve majority weekends & public holidays?

Absolutely.

Shift work destroys your life.

They deserve everything they can get.

Yeah, some people deserve more than others. Of course the armed forces do shift work, no extra leave. 8-)

lee wrote on Sep 28^th, 2026 at 5:26pm:

Yeah, some people deserve more than others. Of course the armed forces do shift work, no extra leave. 8-)

They receive 5 weeks of annual leave.

That's one extra week.

White knight
Resd your bible.
It is better to give then to receive.

Your whole mindset is " how can I do less, how can I be a better taker, how can I extract value, how can I get without contributing"

It's very low quality

Gnads wrote on Sep 28^th, 2026 at 3:57pm:

Jasin wrote on Sep 27th, 2026 at 6:45pm: Australian industries and even small Companies or Businesses have crashed and burned from Unionism. BS - more like poor business models.

Well then. Maybe YOUR workers should buy the Companies & Businesses like they do in South America... just to keep themselves in a job, where employment is hard to find BECAUSE of a lack of Companies & Businesses going around?!

greggerypeccary wrote on Sep 28^th, 2026 at 6:17pm:

lee wrote on Sep 28th, 2026 at 5:26pm: Yeah, some people deserve more than others. Of course the armed forces do shift work, no extra leave. 8-) They receive 5 weeks of annual leave. That's one extra week.

Sorry. You are right. But only in the last 3 years. Not nearly as long as civvies.

lee wrote on Sep 28^th, 2026 at 7:05pm:

greggerypeccary wrote on Sep 28th, 2026 at 6:17pm: lee wrote on Sep 28th, 2026 at 5:26pm: Yeah, some people deserve more than others. Of course the armed forces do shift work, no extra leave. 8-) They receive 5 weeks of annual leave. That's one extra week. Sorry. You are right. But only in the last 3 years. Not nearly as long as civvies.

Which is disgraceful.

Well done to Labor (and Albo) for doing it though, albeit many decades too late.

Peccary is what is known as a Rubber.

...and its not just because his parents should have worn a condom either.  ;)

Jasin wrote on Sep 28^th, 2026 at 7:33pm:

Peccary is what is known as a Rubber. ...and its not just because his parents should have worn a condom either.  ;)

Gene Simmons says -

this rock and roll world is filled with effing losers:


https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qp8DupS_J9A

Jasin wrote on Sep 28^th, 2026 at 7:04pm:

Gnads wrote on Sep 28th, 2026 at 3:57pm: Jasin wrote on Sep 27th, 2026 at 6:45pm: Australian industries and even small Companies or Businesses have crashed and burned from Unionism. BS - more like poor business models. Well then. Maybe YOUR workers should buy the Companies & Businesses like they do in South America... just to keep themselves in a job, where employment is hard to find BECAUSE of a lack of Companies & Businesses going around?!

Worker Co-operatives in Australia have been in existence my entire lifetime(70yrs) that I know of - & probably longer.

Some successful some not.

In the 1960's it was believed that productivity would mean that we would be working a 3 day week before the year 2000.

What wasn't considered at that time was the greed of the top 0.5% and the political corruption would mean that all the productivity would go to this top percentile and the rest of us would get nothing.

Yes the productivity was real it just wasn't distributed. 99.99997% didn't trickle down.

The world of government governing for the people came to an end.

greggerypeccary wrote on Sep 28^th, 2026 at 7:14pm:

Well done to Labor (and Albo) for doing it though, albeit many decades too late.

And many Labor governments too. The same Labor governments that put ADF DFRB super into General Revenue.

lee wrote on Sep 27^th, 2026 at 7:21pm:

Hell why not make it 52 weeks. 8-)

Working 12 years with one employer. I found out that I had 52 weeks of leave. I had to take 2 months off work, just so the boss did not have to keep paying me after I quit the job.

whiteknight wrote on Sep 27^th, 2026 at 7:24pm:

Well said greeggerypeccary, also maybe an extra public holiday, might be a good idea.  Australia has far too few public holidays.   :(

We have enough. Australia cannot just have more public holidays for the sake of people wanting another paid day off.