| Bulletin #11, June 2005 Howard Government attacks It's on. We knew it would be happening but we weren't sure of just how soon. Federal Cabinet has now endorsed proposals, which have been Liberal/Coalition policy for many years, to attack your rights at work, the existence of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission and the role of unions. The Federal Government will move to dramatically reduce the rights of all employees at work. Described by the Sydney Morning Herald on 23 May as "sweeping away 100 years of industrial relations practice", Cabinet has resolved to remove from the Australian Industrial Relations Commission the power to set wages. No more national wage cases and certainly no more state wage cases as the campaign to reduce everyone's rights at work will also abolish the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission. Before we analyse what the government proposes to do, we should remind ourselves of what it's like to work in local government now. How things are now In 1992 the Local Government Association and Shires Association and the local government unions introduced a new Local Government (State) Award. It removed 400 or so classifications and established eleven pay levels in four bands. It also established consultative committees at each council, provided flexibility on hours and an ability for councils to reach agreement with their employees for enterprise or council agreements that could vary the Award. The collectively negotiated Award between the employers' peak body and the unions covers almost 150 councils and is the basis for other arrangements at Newcastle, Wollongong, Orange and Lake Macquarie. The Award provides annual increases, an obligation for councils to place employees fairly in a salary system and review rates of pay every twelve months and potentially progress employees up the pay scale if they have acquired and applied new skills. In 2001 by agreement between employers and the unions, a commitment to reasonable hours was incorporated in the Award and in 2004 this was supplemented by a commitment to family friendly work. The 2004 Award put restrictions on implementing term contracts. All these things make local government a nicer place to work. The Award, supplemented by the role of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, allows unions to enforce these conditions. In the short term, we have run disputes about appointment and promotion, restructuring, refusal of councils to consult, discipline of members for issues relating to performances, as well as misconduct, and compliance with the Award in areas such as salary system disputes, the provision of annual reviews, the equitable placement in salary systems, compliance with agreements and family-friendly work. In New South Wales, 45% of workers are covered by State awards. It is those 45%, like local government employees, who will suffer most from the attack upon working conditions by the Howard Government. Hang on, lets not get too political about this… depa is not affiliated with any political party. Historically we have saved our vitriol for the Liberal/National Coalition as a response to the industrial relations "reform" carried out by the Fahey Government in 1991 and Labor when NSW Labor crashed through with private certification and tampering with the development control process in the late 1990's. We make no apologies for our impartiality. We now find ourselves in the position of having to contest the changes proposed by the Federal government. We have no choice. And neither do you. How could life be? The abolition of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission would be a body blow to NSW workers. User-friendly, competent, involved in workplaces and with a history of doing so for more than 100 years, the Industrial Relations Commission would be abolished using the Corporations powers under the Australian Constitution. These powers will shortly be challenged by some state Labor Governments, Unions NSW (the new name for the NSW Labor Council) and the ACTU. A High Court challenge may prevent or delay these dangerous changes. At the same time that the Howard Government will remove the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, they will wind back the powers of the Australian Commission. The Commission will no longer set wage rates - this role will be taken over by an organisation called the "Fair Pay Commission" which will have the power to set all award wages. This new body will also set things such as hours of work and annual leave entitlements. Other employment conditions now covered by awards would be reduced from the twenty allowable matters in the Federal system to sixteen or even a smaller number. The anti-employee and anti-union zealots in organisations like the Business Council of Australia would like to see only six or eight allowable matters and the rest would be up to you. That means that all the important things that you ring depa about and which create problems in your working life, would no longer be capable of being dealt with in the Commission. And that means, whatever the boss wants, the boss will get. There are two useful examples to show how bad things could be. The removal of the National Wage Case where governments, employers and unions can meet together to argue about equity and the ability for the economy to pay, would be replaced by this new Fair Pay Commission comprised of bureaucrats from treasury and employer organisations. There may or may not be a union or employee representative. This is how things work in the US and in the US the minimum wage has not moved since 1997. Who wants a system like that in Australia? Under the Local Government (State) Award employees have had seven pay increases in that time as well as progression in the salary systems the Award requires councils to set up. In 1991 the New Zealand Government moved overnight to abolish awards, deregister unions, reduce access of union officials to worksites, reduce the power of their Commission and require employees to go onto individual contracts. It will be the New Zealand strategy that will be adopted by the Howard Government. And they will be able to force it to occur as well. They are already using the threat of withdrawing funding from universities to require all staff to be employed on individual contracts from August this year. If universities don't comply, and many of them don't want to because they see the folly in this exercise, the Federal Government will withhold funding of around $400 million.
It has not happened in the preceding years of the Howard Government because Howard did not have a majority in the Senate. From 1 July there will be a majority in the Senate and this will allow the Government to do whatever it wants to do. That will include reducing your rights at work. This is an ideologically driven attack upon employees and rights that have developed over more than one hundred years. It is not just an attack upon trade unions and their role, it is much more fundamental and will affect all of the things regarded by employees in local government as important and critical to their satisfaction and comfort at work. It is not, as you will hear the Government claim, about freeing up work in the interests of greater productivity. The New Zealand experience shows that their attack upon unions and employees did not improve productivity compared to the same sort of employees in Australia working under the proper industrial regulation provided by awards and agreements negotiated collectively between employer organisations and unions. It is being done to remove any union involvement in wages and conditions and to move as many employees as possible onto individual contracts. Our solicitor recently asked us the question, "if you have 1300 members, how will you cope with 1300 individual contracts"? Neither depa nor any other union could cope with this sort of approach but his rejoinder was this, "you won't have to worry about your ability to service these agreements, they won't be negotiable!" Members will see considerable press and general media about this attack
upon working conditions. It is an attack upon unions by people who have
always hated them but, more importantly, it is an attack upon you and
all of the things you regard as important at work. We urge you, and especially those members who voted for, and who are connected to the Liberal/National Coalition, to discuss this with your local Federal members of parliament and tell them it's not fair and it's not on. We win fight for family-friendly work at Bankstown The last issue of the Bulletin reported on our dispute with Bankstown Council over access to family friendly work for a member who wants to spend Wednesdays with his two and three year old kids. This sort of thing is precisely what was anticipated when the unions and the LGSA agreed to incorporate a commitment to family friendly work in the 2004 Award. The Industrial Relations Commission recommended that Bankstown allow our member to work his 35 hours over a four day, rather than a five day, week. The trial period elapsed and, even thought there is no evidence at all of any change in measurable performance standards, the Council wanted the employee back working five days a week. When this dispute came back on before the Industrial Relations Commission on 16 May, we provided evidence that there was no loss of productivity and a statement from the member's team leader acknowledging this. The Council however, provided only general observations that the area itself is under-resourced. They had done nothing to monitor the trial. On 16 May the stakes were raised with Unions NSW, the USU and the LGEA intervening in support of depa. It is unusual to have Unions NSW intervene in a local government dispute but the principles about family-friendly work and the flexibility which is a commitment of the Local Government (State) Award is sufficiently important for the Unions' peak body to be involved. This dispute then started to get some publicity. Workers Online, UnionsNSW's electronic newsletter started pursuing the Council. They asked them, that as they boast that they are a family-friendly employer, how do they define family friendly? And they didn't give up. And how could a Labor-dominated Council, with a female Labor mayor be getting this so wrong? On 30 May, the Council collapsed. They would agree to exactly what the employee wanted when he raised the issue with them in December 2004. Why it needed four appearances in the Commission, lots of futile meetings with bloody-minded council staff, the intervention of Unions NSW and the USU and the LGEA, at a council that claimed that it was family-friendly, still hasn't been answered. This is a significant victory for us. Its also testimony to the member concerned, Richard Aguiar, being prepared to argue it with them and tough it out. Well done, Richard! It's also a telling example of the sort of dispute that we would not be able to run under Howard's dismantling of the Industrial Relations system. Members might like to keep up with Workers Online at http://workers.labor.net.au Another courageous member wins in an appointment dispute at Canterbury We get many enquires from members unhappy about how councils go about making appointments. We get fewer members prepared to take the council on - most having concluded that challenging the council isn't a good career move. If the Howard reforms are successful the question won't arise. There will be no power to challenge these appointments. We have a member at Canterbury Council who recently challenged the right of the Council to advertise a position in which he had acted for more than twelve months. We have made it clear that we believe that because the Local Government (State) Award and the Local Government Act both prevent councils employing anyone temporarily for more than twelve months, that any employee acting in a job for more than twelve months has the equivalent of squatter's right to that job. While neither the Department of Local Government nor the Industrial Relations Commission have not yet said this in so few words, the advertising of a job in which a member had acted for more than twelve months provided the opportunity for depa to file a dispute to try and force the Canterbury Council to recognise the employee's right to the job. The IRC recommended that the advertising for the position go ahead but that the Council not make an appointment without coming back to the Commission. In these circumstances you could be forgiven for presuming that the employee who took the action against the Council would be treated badly by the council. In a decision to defy that common sense, Philip Brown has now been appointed to the job of Fire Safety Officer. This is a fabulous result. It rewards a member prepared to take on management and insist on their rights and it reminds all members of rights they currently possess which can be enforced by us. It also reminds us of how much there is to lose. LGSS employee representatives split on employee access to the surplus There hasn't been much LGSS news in the Bulletin over recent issues. Some time ago a majority of the LGSS Board voted to amend the Trust Deed to restrict the ability of LGSS Board members communicating with members of the Fund. Not only does the majority of the Board take a very strict view about what should be regarded as confidential but Board members who breach that confidentially can be removed from the Board. These amendments were originally raised to silence depa's Bulletin and the information we were conveying at the time about the surplus in the Defined Benefits scheme. While depa's Secretary is a member of the Board he and the LGEA's Martin O'Connell were beaten by six votes to two (the LGSA and the USU representatives) on this tightening up of information. But now another issue demands attention and needs to be communicated. This is a fairly complicated story that arises from the definition that the Board uses in determining what is "superable salary" for members of the Defined Benefits Scheme, i.e. Division B. It rises only during the specific circumstances of the employer contribution holiday because members of the fund on total salary packages have not been paying the employer's contribution to their super from their package. Instead, they retain it as cash. The question arises about how to determine superable salary. Historically, superable salary would be the total amount of the package minus the cost of super. This is easy to calculate when the super is coming out of the package but raises questions when it is not. At the December 2004 meeting of the Board, after depa's Secretary had left the meeting, Barry Mason, another of the employee representatives, in late items and without warning, raised the issue. The Board resolved by six votes to nil (Martin O'Connell from the LGEA was absent and the proxy was being carried by Ian Robertson) that superable salary should be the amount of money presuming that superannuation was being paid of the package when it was not. In a nutshell this means that if the package was $100 000, superable salary would normally be $100 000 minus superannuation, say $10 000 - a total of $90 000. Even though the employee was getting a total payment of $100 000 the superable salary would be a lesser figure. This means that employees are disadvantaged during the life of the contribution holiday, both in terms of how much money goes into their accounts and, if they retire within a period after the contribution holiday then this definition effectively means they would retire on a figure less than they were receiving as cash. Retirement benefits being all about final average salary. It is unacceptable that the employee representatives in December, Barry Mason and John Ernst, voted with the employer representative on the Board to legitimise this unfortunate definition. The depa and LGEA nominees on the Board are used to being beaten in votes by an alliance of the employer representatives and the other two employee representatives but why wait until those representatives have left the meeting? It is even worse when Ian Robertson and Martin O'Connell moved at the May meeting that the definition be rescinded and a definition recognising the increased cash payment replace it, that Mason and Ernst continued to vote with the LGSA representatives to deny this benefit for employees. Close to $600 million has been spent from the surplus to reduce employer costs since the holiday started in 1998. Councils received a giant windfall from the surplus and the LGSS unsuccessfully pursued a claim in the Supreme Court to try and provide some of the surplus as benefits to employees. The only employees who have benefited from this are those employees on packages and this decision by two of the employee representatives denies the opportunity for those members to have higher contributions into their accounts and better retirement incomes - all funded by the surplus. It would be improper to convey to members of the scheme how the debate went at the Board meeting on 24 May. However, it is clear that the decision of the two employee representatives Mason and Ernst to vote with the LGSA representatives means that we have now lost any chance of getting any of the surplus for employees. This is a sad day. LGSS actuaries calculated for the purposes of meetings with the Treasurer that about a third of the surplus could be traced to employee entitlements left in the Fund by employees leaving the industry before they could take their super with them. So, a third of the surplus should have been available to be returned to employees. The fight is now lost. What's the point of having employee or member representatives on the Board who won't vote to look after member interests? A report by the Secretary
on "Superable salary" that was considered by the LGSS Board
on 22 May is on our website. depa's Golf Day on 11 March was another great occasion. Twenty-three teams of four members each turned up at Blackheath Golf Course on a beautiful autumn day to contest the prestigious depa Cup.
The team from North Sydney won by a clear margin. Peter Jeuken, Peter Williams, Warwick Winn and Mark Schofield thrashed everyone. Peter Jeuken also won a prize for the longest drive. Buried toward the bottom of the field in 2004, Warwick Winn's move to the position of Director at North Sydney has provided him with a much better golf team as well as a significant career move. Our congratulations to the North Sydney team and to the rest of those who participated in a great day sponsored by FuturePlus. The depa Golf Day will be held next year at Blackheath on Friday 10 March. Two new faces in the office We apologise if we've been a bit slow getting back to you over the last few weeks but we have had a five week period with no staff at all. Kristy, worth her weight in gold, had to leave to return to Bathurst for family reasons and Melissa left too. We now have two new faces in the office. Jody Ekert and Sandra Stavrou. Up until 2004 we only ever had one person working in the office with the Secretary but we are now going to have two - Sandra will be responsible for accounts and payroll and Jody will be responsible for publications, PA to the Secretary and assistance with membership. These additional resources will allow us to do many new things. We are committed to publishing the first ever issue of depa News and anticipate it will be as eagerly awaited as the issues of the Health Surveyors News and Habsa News, which we published between 1984 and 1997. The paper was well-received, despised by government (particularly by Planning Minister Craig Knowles who we published in a photo with the Dodgy Brothers but clarified that he was not a relation) and was proudly known as local government's most unruly tabloid. Please make Sandra and Jody welcome.
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One
of the great things about golf is that you can hit a ball brilliantly
and then, with your next shot, look like you've never picked up a club.
Great shots and shots better-not-remembered were the highlight of the
day.