Across the nation, ETU members celebrated May Day at the start of the month. Each branch attended or hosted a May Day celebration, bringing together workers, families, delegates and union comrades to reflect on the victories won by working people through collective action. From marches through city streets to community gatherings and rallies, members stood proudly alongside the broader union movement to celebrate the history of May Day and the ongoing fight for fair wages, safe workplaces and dignity on the job — here is a snapshot of this year’s celebrations.
CEPU South Australia
The CEPU and our members were out in the city for the annual May Day March where we joined with other unions and their members. It was a great day of solidarity ✊️
On this day in 1886, workers in Chicago stood up for their right to an 8-hour workday. Their brave action sparked a violent response known as the Haymarket Affair. Since then, working people around the world have gathered on the 1st of May to honour past struggles and continue the fight for fair wages and safe workplaces.
Western Australia
May Day in the West once again brought together a fantastic turnout of members, their families and friends to celebrate and reflect on the hard-fought gains of the union movement, particularly the historic struggle for the eight-hour working day.
With perfect weather and plenty of smiles throughout the day, members marched proudly through Fremantle alongside fellow unionists, recognising the generations of workers who fought for the wages, conditions and safety standards many now take for granted.
The atmosphere throughout the festival was overwhelmingly positive, with families enjoying the celebrations and members taking the opportunity to reconnect outside the pressures and demands of the job. Events like May Day remain an important reminder that unions are not just built in workplaces or bargaining rooms, but through the relationships and sense of community shared between working people.
The day wrapped up with a joint AMWU and ETU WA pub function, where more than 150 members gathered to continue the celebrations in great spirits. It was a fitting end to a successful day and another strong showing of union pride here in Western Australia.
CEPU Tasmania
Happy May Day! Unions around the world recognise the 1st of May as International Workers’ Day where we celebrate the achievements of unions and our contributions to making our workplaces and communities better, safer, and fairer.
May Day is a reminder that rights at work weren’t gifted by governments or bosses. They were won when workers organised, took action together, and won change.
NSW/ACT
May Day is one of the key dates on the union calendar, and this year was no exception. It is a time when workers around the world come together to recognise what has been achieved.
For the ETU, it is also a chance to look back at the struggles that won fair pay, safer workplaces and respect on the job.
From the push for the eight-hour day to the rights we defend today, May Day reminds us that these gains did not come easily, but were hard fought for and won by unions.
The ETU NSW/ACT is continuing to campaign to make May Day a public holiday by embedding it into all EBA’s, so workers can properly mark the occasion and its importance.
This year’s strong turnout showed that union spirit is still strong among ETU members. Thanks to everyone who showed up and stood together.
QLD/NT
This year’s May Day march was a defining moment for workers across Queensland. From Brisbane to every corner of our great state, members turned out in their thousands — in what stands as one of the biggest May Day mobilisations in our history. Brothers and sisters, families, and union comrades from across the movement stood shoulder to shoulder in a collective show of strength that sent a clear message to every boss, every politician, and every anti-worker force in this state.
This is what solidarity looks like.
We were honoured to have ETU National Secretary Michael Wright join us on the streets of Brisbane — marching alongside our members and their families, standing with the movement at a critical moment in our fight. His presence was a powerful symbol of the unity that runs through every level of our union, from the shop floor to the national office. The entire ETU stands as one behind the workers of Queensland and Northern Territory.
At the front of the Brisbane march, our members carried a banner that spoke for every worker in this state who has felt the boot of this government on their neck: “THE LNP HATES WORKERS!” Those words are not hyperbole. They are the lived reality of our members, and nowhere is that reality more raw and more unjust than in the ongoing dispute at Queensland Rail.
The history of this dispute begins with a commitment — a solemn promise made to ETU members at the last EBA negotiations: an Electrical Only Enterprise Agreement. Our members bargained in good faith, as we always do. They reached an agreement and honoured it. The promise was made. Workers accepted it in the spirit of collective bargaining.
Now, the LNP Government is walking away from that promise. They refuse to come to the table. They are treating the hard-won outcome of genuine enterprise bargaining as something they can simply discard when it becomes politically inconvenient. This is not how a government treats workers it respects. This is how a government treats workers it holds in contempt.
When ETU members exercised their lawful right to take protected industrial action — in the form of a paperwork ban, one of the mildest forms of action available to workers under Australian law — Queensland Rail’s response was immediate and disproportionate. The message from management was blunt: if any ETU member takes any form of protected action, all ETU members stop being paid. Faced with that ultimatum, our members had no choice but to withhold their labour. QR’s own aggression created the very disruption it now seeks to blame on workers.
The result has been a significant reduction in train services across South East Queensland. We acknowledge the real impact this has had on commuters, and we want to be clear: the ETU and our members have done everything in our power to minimise disruption to the travelling public throughout this dispute. Our collective action has always been measured.
The disruption commuters are experiencing is not the result of workers defending their rights. It is the result of an LNP Government willing to hold Queensland commuters hostage in order to break a union. They are using the people of Queensland as a pawn in a political game.
The matter is now before the Fair Work Commission. We are engaged in that process with the same commitment to collective bargaining that has always defined this union. Progress has been slow — the government appears in no hurry to honour what was promised to our members. But our resolve is unwavering. We will not leave our members behind. We will not walk away from what was won. We will keep fighting until Queensland Rail workers get the Electrical Only Enterprise Agreement they were promised — and the respect every worker in this state deserves.
May Day exists to remind us of something fundamental: that workers, when they stand together, are the most powerful force in any society. The record turnout we saw across Queensland this year — and the presence of our National Secretary marching alongside us in Brisbane — is proof that the spirit of the labour movement is alive and burning bright in this state. The LNP can ignore our demands. They can break their promises. They can try to use commuters as leverage against us. But they cannot break what we have built together through decades of collective struggle.
To every member who marched this May Day across QLD and NT— who brought their families, stood with their workmates, and raised their voice — this movement is yours. And it is stronger for your presence in it.
In Solidarity.
