Join the Multi-Employer Agreement for Community Legal Centre Workers

ASU Members at YouthLaw and Inner Melbourne Community Legal negotiated with their employers to create a great multi-employer agreement (MEA), improving their working conditions, growing worker strength for negotiations, and providing the entire sector of CLC's the valuable opportunity to join and bargain for better, together. More recently, Consumer Action Law Centre and Tenants Victoria roped in to joining this MEA so they can now benefit from these wins as well! You can see that agreement here.

CLC workers in Victoria can now join onto by following a few straightforward steps.

What is a Multi-Employer Agreement?

A Multi-Employer Agreement (MEA) is a single enterprise agreement that covers multiple employers across the same industry or sector. Instead of negotiating separate agreements workplace by workplace, an MEA allows workers and employers to come together to bargain collectively.

This approach creates a stronger, united front, giving workers more power to win fair pay, better conditions, and long-term improvements across the sector.

Sign the petition now

Why Join a Multi-Employer Agreement?

Because together, we are stronger.

Community Legal Centres are built on the dedication, compassion, and professionalism of their workforce. Yet too often, workers are undervalued, underpaid, and stretched thin.

Joining this Multi-Employer Agreement gives you access to improved pay and conditions, and you’ll be represented in the next round of bargaining in 2028 where you and your CLC colleagues across the state can continue to:

Lift standards across the sector
Secure fair pay and conditions for all workers
Reduce inequality between organisations
Strengthen our collective bargaining power
Create consistency and stability for workers across the sector

What are the Benefits of joining the CLC MEA?

This MEA gives covered workers better pay, conditions, protections, and rights, including but not limited to:

Higher pay – 3% above award until 1 July 2026, then 4.5% above award.
5 weeks Annual Leave per year.
Bonus leave between Xmas and NYE.
4 weeks Gender Affirmation Leave per year.
16 weeks Primary Parental Leave and 4 weeks Secondary. Plus, access to Parental Leave after 12 months of continuous employment at any combination of employers on the MEA (meaning you can move around without losing your eligibility).
10 days paid Cultural and Ceremonial Leave for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff; plus 2 days paid leave for other staff for the purposes of cultural, ceremonial and/or religious obligations.
Public Holiday Substitution by mutual agreement.
Personal Leave of 12 days in the first year; 14 days in the second, third and fourth years; and 21 days in each year after that.
Enforceable classifications for 37 common roles.
The opportunity to take disputes to the Fair Work Commission.
Prioritised internal applicants in recruitment processes.
Workloads proactively managed by the employer.
Union Representation rights in Disciplinary Procedures; Union Consultative Committees

Plus, there's a clause to ensure that you don’t lose out on your current pay and conditions if they're above what's in the MEA! See clause 8 for details.

Why Unity Matters

When we unite across the sector, our voices are louder—and harder to ignore. So, when we next bargain for this MEA in 2028, we’ll be able to run a single, coordinated campaign across CLC’s covered by the MEA that:

Raises the public profile of our issues
Puts pressure on government to act
Sets a clear direction for the future of the sector
Builds solidarity between workers across the sector

With one agreement, we send a powerful message:
We won’t be divided, and we won’t be overlooked.

What Can You Do?

If you want to join the MEA here’s what you need to do:

Sign the petition – we need to show the Fair Work Commission that a majority of workers in your workplace support joining the agreement
Talk to your colleagues about the MEA and why it matters
Join union meetings and actions to stay engaged
Share updates and campaign materials with your networks

Let’s build a stronger, fairer CLC industry together.

Sign the petition now

Sign the petition today!

The ASU is by your side. Talk to a co-worker about the importance of union membership and ask them to join the ASU at https://www.asuvictas.com.au/VICTAS/Join

Frequently asked questions:

1. What is an Multi Employer Agreement?

A multi-employer agreement (MEA) is an enterprise agreement that covers two or more employers who have a ‘common interest’ and the business activities are reasonably comparable. Common interests include geographical location, regulatory regime and the size and scope of the enterprises and terms and conditions of employment in those enterprises.

Community Legal Centre employers have common interests because they are covered by the same industrial award (Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Award).

2. Who can join this MEA?

To be covered by the MEA, you must work for a Community Legal Centre and not be covered by a live Agreement (whether that’s a single-employer EBA or the ‘old-rules’ MEA). If you’re not sure if this applies to you, reach out to your ASU Organiser or the ASU Member Engagement Team on 1300 855 570 or [email protected]

3. Why is an MEA a good idea?

The benefits of MEA bargaining as opposed to the traditional single-enterprise bargaining are:

Unions must consent before an enterprise agreement is put out to a vote of all employees. The employer cannot unilaterally end bargaining before it’s finished and put the agreement to vote against the union’s wishes (as has occurred at many employers in recent history). This gives workers stronger bargaining power as non-members cannot be used to outvote union members.
Industrial action can be taken across many workplaces in support of the agreement, giving the industrial action a greater profile and more effectively gaining media and political attention.
By focusing on one big agreement for CLCs rather than countless small agreements we use our combined power to bring everyone’s conditions up all at once; and we’re freeing up Delegates and Organisers to work on other CLC-specific campaigns!

4. What is the process to join the MEA?

If you work at a CLC and you’re not covered by a live Agreement, the process to join the MEA is quite simple (with a little help from your ASU Officials, of course!):

We need to show the Fair Work Commission that the majority of staff at your workplace want to be covered by the MEA – we do this by collecting signatures on the petition, which you can sign here - https://form.jotform.com/252087897563877
The Commission will consider the relevant info, including the petition signatures and whether your employer has similar interests to the other CLCs (which of course they do!!). They also hear submissions from your employer (if any) and the ASU (which there will be).
The Commission will then make an order to vary the existing MEA to add your employer’s name to Schedule 5. Throughout the MEA there is reference to ‘Employer CLCs’, which is then defined by a list of employers in Schedule 5. By varying that list to add your employer’s name, the MEA then applies to you!
Done!

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