depa introduction

The Local Government (State) Award is usually negotiated every three years. It has been made by agreement between the parties to the Award - the Local Government Association and Shires Association and the unions - since it was first made in 1992. Prior to 1992, the Awards which preceded the State Award, were also made by agreement.

This means its hard to find dramatic improvements - usually there are only available house-keeping, minor changes for clarity or changes which result from new standards adopted in test cases or in precedents in other industries.

Nevertheless, there are some significant changes resulting from the negotiations that have taken place over the last six months or so.

Before detailing our reasons for recommending acceptance, we need to make some observations about salary increases. This is always the big question.

The most critical observation is that everyone would have liked to get 6% - just like the Teachers. Unfortunately, Teachers are a special case and there was no way in the world that increases approaching their 6% would be achieved. Apart from anything else, the NSW Government was facing a campaign by the Teachers that had already involved a couple of days on strike and was anticipating strike action on a weekly basis until agreement was reached.

We don't have that sort of industrial muscle, commitment from members to participate in that sort of campaign nor the public support that the Teachers have. More's the pity.

depa's Log of Claims

Our ten point log of claims was circulated to members with the industrial bulletin and has been on the website since the claim was made in February 2004. depa has always taken the view that we would prefer to focus on a small number of achievable claims. The claims are listed below, and the LGSA offer in response:

1. Abolish "term" contracts

It's hard not to be extremely aggrieved that the USU has refused to agree to the Award being made with a clause that would regulate term contracts in Band 3 Level 4. This area is currently unregulated, most employees on Band 3 Level 4 across the State are already on term contracts and are on those contracts without the ability to agree that they would be on a contract in the first place or to agree that they should get some compensation for loss of tenure or a clause that would require the council to offer another contract subject to satisfactory service.

We have already circulated members with a response to an attack upon depa by the USU in a USUupdate. We have had a long history of fighting term contracts - from about 1988, in fact. We have pursued Governments, harassed Ministers, nagged the Department of Local Government, tried to solicit support from the ICAC and the NSW Ombudsman to prevent the proliferation of contracts in the 1990's.

depa is the only union that has filed disputes with councils which have tried to introduce contracts and we did this at Holroyd, Lane Cove, Lismore and Gosford - and it was at Gosford that the idea of the roll-over clause was first agreed.

We have a long and vigilant history but as much as we hate them we recognize that these contracts already exist and that they exist without regulation.

We were able to reach agreement with the LGSA and the LGEA that there should be a clause inserted in the new Award which would regulate contracts in Band 3 Level 4. We were not able to convince the USU that it should apply generally.

We then reached agreement with the LGSA and the LGEA on a clause that would regulate term contracts in Band 3 Level 4 for members of depa and the LGEA and which made it abundantly clear that the clause had "no effect on any other employees, or any other position, or any other employment arrangements".

The USU still believed that this affected them. They were also concerned that if the clause went ahead, even thought they didn't want to participate in it for their members, it would make depa or the LGEA more attractive for employees at that level - after all, why wouldn't you join depa or the LGEA if it meant that you had the right to agree to the contract in the first place and that you could then reach agreement with the council about whether you got salary loading of at least 10% or a roll-over clause if performance was satisfactory during the life of the contact?

Attached to this document is a copy of the agreed clause between the LGSA, us and the LGEA. That we have lost the opportunity of incorporating this in the Award is a tragedy - and that the USU would prevent it being incorporated, in a way which did not effect their members, is a disgrace. Shame on them.

Conciliation in the Industrial Relations Commission this morning before Deputy President Grayson failed to convince USU General Secretary Brain Harris that he should remove his opposition. Unfortunately, under the wage fixation principles established by the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, if the parties to the Award do not agree, and if it includes something like a 10% salary loading, then it has to be referred to the Full Bench of the Industrial Relations Commission as a "special case".

USU bloodymindedness means that these contracts will go unregulated.

All we have been able to recover from this exercise (which began with an application for a declaration before the Deputy President of the Commission in the middle of 2003) is that the issue of term contracts should be incorporated in the "leave reserved" clause.

This will allow us to arbitrate this clause (hopefully relying on the agreement with the LGSA and LGEA) as a special case after the Award is made. We will do this as quickly as we can. The USU now sees that this is an important issue. They say they want to fight it - we say probably 15 years too late. In terms of understanding the problems, they are now where we were in 1988. Some would say being 15 years behind us is an improvement.

As an aside, the USU, in an acrimonious and spiteful meeting on 9 September, made it clear that, even though they hadn't ever mentioned it, they are unhappy about depa accepting planners as members. They will not talk to us, they will not ask Labor Council to mediate but they will "at a time convenient to them" file a demarcation application to try and prevent our continuing coverage of planners.

What a waste of resources to have two unions fighting each other like this.

In discussions with the LGEA, the USU conceded that part of their opposition is based on a view that they don't believe that managers, who they think are "already highly paid", should get any more money. This is very short-sighted and confirms the different interests of members of the USU and professional Unions.

2. Introduce paid parental leave

Done. The LGSA has responded to this by agreeing that up to one week of an employee's sick leave can be used by a "supporting parent".

3. Determine issues arising from accreditation of Council certifiers

These issues remain unresolved by the Government and are not capable of being addressed at this stage in the Award. We have incorporated this into the "Leave Reserved" clause and this will allow us to negotiate and, if necessary arbitrate, these issues during the life of the Award.

4. Review and expand salary sacrifice options

Not achieved. There is a practical limitation with these options because there is no real benefit for most of our members because the FBT rates and PAYG rates are the same at the salary level where most of our members sit. We did raise the specific example of the Department of Defense Enterprise Agreement allowing the purchase of additional leave but this is something better dealt with on a council-by-council basis. It is also a claim better argued if employees don't already have surplus leave to their credit. Local Government has more of a problem with employees not taking the leave they have rather than buying more.

5. Resolve long service leave payout anomaly

Done. The 2001 Award introduced access to leave after five years but did not compliment that by allowing employees who transfer from one council to another being allowed to have paid out the monetary equivalent of their long service leave after five years. The Award stood at ten years.

We proposed the deletion of the ten years and its replacement with five years and this is agreed.

6. Review and increase on -call allowances

Done. The on -call allowance will increase from $70 per week in the current Award to $118.70.

7. Introduce some consequential and penalty provisions

Not agreed. We sought confirmation of permanent appointment if temporarily appointed for more than 12 months and this was rejected. We will now take this up with the Department of Local Government in the review of the Act. We also sought a penalty payment of 2% if a council failed to provide an annual review as required by the Award. We will need to pursue this at individual councils.

8. Encourage broad-banding

Not agreed but probably preferable to be negotiated locally.

Done. This was a claim to amend the clause to guarantee a minimum payment for employees acting in a senior staff position. This has been agreed. The Award will now provide that employees who act in a senior staff position will be paid "an appropriate rate of pay commensurate with the duties and responsibilities of the relief work undertaken". Take that Ku-ring-gai!

10. Appropriate salary increases

There has never been an increase of 4% in the Awards made since 1992 - the increases have all been around the 3.25%.

We need to keep in mind that Award increases are fundamentally intended to be an economic adjustment. Employees receive payments for increased skills levels through their salary system and, if there is sufficient change in their position, can have positions re-graded.

A 4% increase is a significant movement away from increases that have applied since 1995. Here is a list of increases since that time:

11 February 1996 2.5%
11 November 1996 2.5%
24 October 1997 3.5%
24 October 1998 3.25%
24 October 1999 3.25%
24 October 2000 2.7%
1 November 2001 3.3%
1 November 2002 3.25%
1 November 2003 3.25%

4% is also an increase comfortably an excess of both the CPI and rate pegging limits. It will apply form the first pay period on or after 1 November 2004.

Unlike the teachers, who get an annual increase and little else employees under the Local Government (State) Award have other avenues to achieve increases. The Award provides for an annual review based on the acquisition and use of skill or, if that is not reasonably available, on performance and we estimate that around 50% of employees move through the salary system each year. This can be an increase of something around 2% to 4%.

Additionally, while movement in the salary system within a grade is there to reward the acquisition and use of skills in the same job, jobs in the area where we have members have been constantly been bombarded with changes - it doesn't matter whether it's the EP&A, or Food and Environmental Legislation, there has been a constant series of changes since 1998. Sometimes the changes are sufficient to warrant an application for regarding.

The offer provides a further increase of 3.5% from the first pay period on or after 1 November 2005 and another 3% in November 2006.

This is a total increase over three years of 10.5% (more if you compound it) and exceeds the increases available under the three year Awards entered into in 1992, 1997, and 2001. And its good to get a larger increase in the first installment than the second or the third.

There are a number of other improvements to conditions of employment arising from the claims by the three unions.

The offer also includes:

· As a result of a claim by the LGEA, there will be a clause ensuring that lease back agreements, where ever they exist, will provide for a twelve month notification period. This would not apply, of course, for disciplinary purposes, resignation etc and would apply to that small number of councils where employees have not taken advantage of the agreement made in 1995 between the Unions and the LGSA that the lease back termination clause should be twelve months.
· The introduction of a $2 000 redundancy job search allowance - subject to the provision of receipts. Again thanks to the LGEA.
· Clarify that money salary-sacrificed or FBT is included in making up a total salary for superannuation salary purposes. There have been some problems with ensuring that if your salary level is, say $50 000, and you salary sacrifice an extra $10 000 to superannuation, that an employee's salary for superannuation purposes is $50 000 and not $40 000. This will now be clear.
· Rewrite Award and agree, as much as that is possible, to make the Award a "plainer" English document.
· Clarify entitlement of employees to refuse unreasonable overtime.
· Allow for employees to take annual and long service leave at half pay during unpaid periods of maternity leave - provided the total period of absence does not exceed 52 weeks.
· Improve access to trade union training leave by the deletion of the ten day limit per council.
· Clarification that all formal warnings in a disciplinary process would be recorded in writing and limit the suspension without pay during an investigation to not more than two weeks.
· Provision of "reasonable time" without loss of pay for delegates to represent members at a local level. This is not really an issue for depa, as we have never had a problem with this, but it is better clarified.
· According to normal conventions, the car allowance will increase based on the formula agreed with depa decades ago (the private motoring component of the CPI) and other allowances will increase in line with salary increases.

We recommend the offer for your acceptance. Please note that the USU has recommended acceptance of the offer, even before it was in a concluded form, and is already being accepted at meetings of their members. The LGEA will also be recommending it for acceptance.