depa golf day is on again
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- Published on Wednesday, 25 January 2012 12:55
Is there anything better than hitting a golf ball off the tee, the beautiful sound of the ball launched off the sweet spot of the club, a perfect swing, a perfect follow-through and the pleasure of watching the ball arc into a clear blue sky, down the pristine and lush green fairway and so much further than anyone could have reasonably expected!
Buggered if I know, it's never happened to me but golf builds character. Deepak Chopra reckons if you can play golf with the right attitude you can live life with the right attitude. Nice. A bad shot is only a bad shot, the next could be a ripper.
That’s one of the reasons I love golf and the depa Union Picnic Day golf day is on again this year at Blackheath and you can join me on Metropolitan Union Picnic Day, Friday 9 March. We thank Local Government Super for their continued support.
1 commentsEnjoy the long weekend? I love long weekends, and who doesn't.
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- Published on Wednesday, 05 October 2011 10:40
Monday 3 October was Labour Day - a public holiday in New South Wales since 1885 to commemorate the significant triumph of the trade union movement to introduce an eight-hour working day. It wasn't a gift from the employers, who fought it tooth and nail. Like they do every advance.
While I don't want to get into some silly discussion about only people who believe in the purpose of the day being able to take it (like Christians at Christmas or Easter - although both were pagan festivals well before Christianity - monarchists on Queen’s birthday etc) but I think it is important to recognise the origins of the day and celebrate them.
Man bites dog
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- Published on Wednesday, 14 September 2011 08:20
From the vantage point of the depa office you can see local government at its worst. Sometimes petty and venal, sometimes punctuated by self-interest and neglect of the community and the environment, sometimes backward-looking and ignoring of the future, sometimes a bit dull and predictable, and sometimes also cringe-worthy and embarrassing in its stupidity.
The point of Robbo’s Pearls is to vent. We contemplated Robbo’s Rave but that was too limiting. It’s a blog (apparently) and like all blogs it’s meant to be immediate and all about sharing.
So while we see the worst, we also see the best and we see the tier of Government closest to the community and the tier that in many ways is the one more people rely upon and have higher expectations about.
Even though there are few pleasures to rival nailing some stupid GM or HR manager’s decision in the Industrial Relations Commission, or even the absolute joy of nailing a conga line of incompetents like that at Gosford and reported last month, it’s hard not to also feel defensive about the industry. You know, the reluctance to wheel in yet another embarrassing decision that makes the industry look bad because some bloke decided to bite a dog.
So we hope Canterbury wakes up to itself and recognizes that simple inoffensive words to describe people doesn’t come within a bull’s roar of constituting a breach of the Code of Conduct and that their insistence that they do can only end in tears.
And that neither does using strong language in a training course for employees who are going to get abused in the foulest and most offensive ways imaginable on the job because it’s better to know what to expect and how to deal with it. Particularly where the content of the course is known to management, has been “discussed with our training officer who has supported the training initiative”, has been provided to other councils for a fee, has run without complaint for more than a decade and runs alongside CARM training that also has challenging and confronting role plays where strong language is an integral part.
I can imagine whoever is allocated the dispute, if Canterbury doesn’t wake up to itself, scratching their head and wondering about the folly of the human condition and the negative portrayal of the industry in things like Grass Roots and Rats in the Ranks.
Come on Canterbury, jolly well wake up you (a string of physically descriptive words has been deleted to protect the over-sensitive).
“Attractive” and “petite” a breach of the Code of Conduct?
Have your say in our poll.
Why do some councils find it so hard to carry out a speedy and competent investigation of performance or disciplinary questions?
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- Published on Tuesday, 02 August 2011 11:53
The hopeless investigation at Gosford, and the biting criticisms made by IRC President Justice Boland, are a timely reminder that some councils find it almost impossible.
In 2006 we represented a member in an investigation at Campbelltown. It was clear very early on that their "Workplace Investigations" policy did not provide an acceptable process and we filed a dispute to develop one. The Council got Marsdens involved and allocated the investigation to a couple of the directors who showed little interest in complying with their obligation under the award to "properly conduct and speedily conclude” investigations. One of them now manages members of ours at another Council (oh oh) and the other one, for all we know, may still be busily rolling her eyes at Campbelltown.
In the end, the member had nothing really to answer. But the Council did because they committed to reviewing their policy. In fact, they committed, over and over again, to review their policy. Our member left the Council and we lost interest. There is a limit to how much time you can spend dealing with hopeless people.
And, you know what, five years later they still haven't got one!
Something from the bottom draw
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- Published on Wednesday, 15 June 2011 14:00
Some of you are but most of you aren’t, so imagine if you were both an employee and a ratepayer of your Council. As a ratepayer you didn't like the old council and at the election you voted for a group of people who slammed the corruption and incompetence of the current lot and committed themselves to cleaning the place up and introducing a new honesty in politics.
And imagine, when they got elected, they pulled out of the bottom drawer some employment practices that affected you as an employee - which they knew would be so unpopular that they chose not to tell you about before the election.
You'd feel aggrieved, wouldn't you? Cheated, even.
That's precisely the scenario if you are a public sector employee living through changes currently working their way through the NSW Parliament. The Industrial Relations Amendment (Public Sector conditions of employment) Bill 2011 will strip powers from the IRC, change 100 years of conciliation and arbitration practices and provide a ceiling on wages and conditions based on Government policy alone.
I’ve just come back to the office after attending the rally supporting public sector workers and their unions outside Parliament House. What a colourful rally - described by Unions NSW's Mark Lennon as "the biggest union rally in Macquarie Street in twenty years" - not a drop of rain and even a bit of blue sky.
A sign of what life could be like in the new New South Wales
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- Published on Thursday, 02 June 2011 14:45
We reported in April that prior to the election the Opposition gave undertakings that they would make no changes to the Industrial Relations Commission in their first term which would have a negative impact on those employees working under awards or enterprise agreements of the NSW Commission. We hoped that was right and, for a new government, were prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.
But amendments sought to the Industrial Relations Act this week challenged this assurance.
The Industrial Relations Amendment (Public Sector Conditions of Employment) Bill 2011 attempts to remove the independent role of the Industrial Relations Commission that has underpinned the successful operation of the Commission for the last 100 years. The Bill will remove the independence of the Commission to the extent that the Government's own wages policy and philosophical commitments on issues like leave will be incorporated into the Industrial Relations Act and leave the Commission only with the power to adjudicate within those guidelines.
What will life be like in the new New South Wales?
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- Published on Wednesday, 06 April 2011 10:59
Well, the purge is complete and old Labor has been well and truly dumped.
For us, the critical areas are what will the Government do about the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, local government generally and planning.
We understand from UnionsNSW that the Opposition prior to the election gave undertakings that they will make no changes to the Industrial Relations Commission in their first term which would have a negative impact on those employees working under awards or enterprise agreements of the NSW Commission. That's good news for us because the NSW Commission is extremely user-friendly and has been a great assistance to local government over the decades.