Let’s hope this birthday is the first of many

EXCUSE us if we are a little self-indulgent today — but you don’t get to celebrate your first anniversary every day.

Twelve months ago, this site went live to the public promising to provide an alternative to the one-sided version of the news spun by the corporate-owned media.

As we stated at the outset, Working Life exists for the large number of Australians who share the basic values that underpin the Australian union movement: fairness, equality and job security.

Our mission was to bring you human stories, breaking news, vigorous comment, and eye-opening opinion from the world of work.

We said we would be a space for the authentic voices of Australian workers to tell their stories.

We would provide a platform for the campaigns and issues of Australian workers and unions to reach the wider community, and encourage people to take action.
Drawing on a proud labour movement tradition
A year later, we can confidently say that Working Life is delivering original news and opinion that you won’t find elsewhere.

In doing so, Working Life draws on a proud labour movement tradition.

At the start of the twentieth century, newspapers and magazines owned and published by unions took their place on newsstands alongside those owned by the big end of town.

The online revolution gives us the means to do this again, and Working Life has revived the tradition by filling the gap for an opinion-driven website that looks at news, current affairs and lifestyle content from the perspective of Australian workers.

And we are happy to say that more than 130,000 of you have joined us on that journey over the past year. Through our growing number of subscribers and our Twitter and Facebook accounts, Working Life is increasing its reach and spreading these stories to more and more Australians every week.

As we look back on the past 12 months, it staggers even us that we have published more than 750 articles on Working Life.

The site has evolved over time, and is still a work in progress. But there have been many highlights of which we are proud, including:

• In May last year, within half an hour of Wayne Swan standing up in Parliament, we had comprehensive coverage of his final Budget available on the site.
• We covered the 2013 federal election from start to finish, and examined Tony Abbott’s policies in more depth than many mainstream outlets.
• The day Nelson Mandela died, we published the inside story of his close ties to Australian unions in the fight against apartheid.
• We exposed the alleged blacklisting behaviour of construction giant Grocon, and the exploitation of migrant workers under the 457 visa scheme.
• We ran an exclusive series of articles during the Federal Election by Tim Dunlop, one of Australia’s top political bloggers.
• We’ve brought to an Australian audience stories of workers’ struggles in Europe, Asia and North America and around the world. And some of the articles we have published have been picked up by union media in other parts of the world.

Tell us what stories you want to read
We’ve told the stories of dozens upon dozens of Australian workers: their battles, their wins and their dreams, and we’ve posed the question: do you live to work, or work to live?

Hopefully, we’ve made you laugh along the way with our quirky daily Talking Point and Week In Review columns.

And we’ve even managed to grab the attention of Andrew Bolt, who name-checked us in one of his diatribes against progressive Australians earlier this month. So we must be doing something right!

Over the coming 12 months, we will be investing more resources into improving the content of Working Life and increasing its reach to the Australian community.

We know from the regular feedback we get from our readers that there is a great appetite for honest, spin-free reporting about work in Australia.

But we’re not resting on our laurels. We hope this birthday will be the first of many.

And we want to find out more about what you like and dislike about Working Life, and what suggestions you have to improve this website.

So, please take a few minutes to fill out our reader survey so we can understand more about our readership, and deliver a better product that meets your needs and interests.