Sydney May 21: The ASU welcomed the commitments given today by John Picot, CEO of St Vincent de Paul ruling out changing the structure of the Society in order to become a corporation.

"Workers will welcome this commitment. It is good that Mr Picot has stepped in to correct statements made to workers by the Operations Manager of St Vincent De Paul, which raised the possibility of corporatisation because he questioned whether the Society was covered by the Workchoices law. ASU members have been extremely concerned at these statements", said Sally McManus, Branch Secretary of the Australian Services Union.

	Sally McManus, NSW Secretary of the Australian Services Union

"The Union is of the clear view that the Society cannot be covered by Workchoices and therefore cannot offer AWAs because it is not a corporation".
In unfair dismissal proceedings against the Society the ASU spent hours of negotiations before and after the Society decided to terminate the employment of two workers simply because they insisted on their right to approach a workplace problem in a collective, rather than an individual manner. The Society sacked one of these workers despite a recommendation from the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW not to do so.

"The ASU believes that the termination of workers for such reasons is outrageous and we will fight to get their jobs back. We would never have seen the Society operate in such an unjust way in the past. We have had years of working together, this new approach is how we see employers operate in the private sector. They have also given staff new "common law" contracts which change some of their working conditions and have asked them to sign them without consultation. This is not the St Vincent De Paul we know", said Sally McManus.

The ASU wished to put on record that we have never said that St Vincent De Paul was using AWAs. When this was misreported in Friday's Cathnews, Sally McManus immediately requested it be removed and also informed St Vincent De Paul management of this.

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