Too many disputes

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Details

Published: Thursday, 23 October 2025 14:00

Waverley

This is now settled so we can provide details.

The Council proposed to abandon performance and progression reviews on an employee’s anniversary date, and replace it with a universal review of all staff at a particular month of the year. They hadn’t thought through the implications on employees.

It was a poorly thought out proposal, would disadvantage some employees based on the anniversary dates, and advantage others. It wasn’t fair.

If everyone was being reviewed at the same time with an operative date of any increase, for skills progression and/or good performance in July/August, for example, it would mean that employees with progression available with anniversaries from 1 January to the proposed universal date, would be disadvantaged and lose money. That’s clearly demonstrable, if you can count, and continues while ever they might have progression over the following years. For some it’s a loss of thousands.

While it appeared an innumerate management didn’t understood this, it was a stupid and witless letter that meant we had no option but to file a dispute and have the Commission assist us resolve it. The Council called the disadvantage a “perceived disadvantage”, trivialising and even denying that there would be a problem. It was infuriating ignorance.

The Commission immediately understood how employees would be disadvantaged, and that would continue indefinitely, the dispute has now been settled. Employees who have progression available will progress automatically at their anniversary (unless they have had a disciplinary process or warning) and further progression potentially from later in the year based on above average performance.

Over the years councils have abandoned anniversary dates to go to a universal review month or two, but we’ve never heard this happening and no one has ever contacted us to work out whether it was good, bad or indifferent. It’s bad, for some and it’s better, for others. It’s not fair.

This settlement will be a useful precedent for councils looking at moving away from anniversary dates.

Richmond Valley

The Council has form, winning our prestigious HR award in 2018 for wage theft - underpaying trainees by calling them “scholars”, and underpaying our member a massive $241.70 a week in the first year. When the council eventually settled, our member was paid around $30,000 in back pay and the total cost to the Council of backpay, because there were other “scholars” involved, was around $160,000.

In April we reported the Council had put a member of ours on a term contract that didn’t satisfy the restrictive provisions of the Award. They wrongly cited a part of the Award, then claimed it was an admin error and then claimed they could do it under another provision. We argued unsuccessfully with them, then filed a dispute and the Council settled five minutes before the dispute came on for a compulsory conference in the Commission!

They accepted they couldn’t rely on Humpty Dumpty’s philosophy, “when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less”, when interpreting the Fixed Term Contracts provisions of the Award.

It was all about wishful thinking and their meaning of words and dodging provisions of the Award - unsuccessfully. The dispute was discontinued.

Then in providing a letter acknowledging he is a continuing permanent employee, they removed some of the things he had done over the previous two years, the result of training they had paid for including flights to and from Sydney, overnight accommodation and expenses.

Then an argument over their performance review and whether our member should progress in the salary system having satisfied six goals out of six as “meets expectations”, (one of which should be exceeds expectations) but still not being given progression.

A clumsy letter that had sat for nine days after the final date it should have been provided refused the progression. When we returned to the IRC on 16 October, the Council acknowledge the letter was inappropriate, asked for our consent to withdraw it, we agreed and suggested it should come with an apology and the reasons for refusal. We still don’t have it.

The dispute is next listed for conciliation in Casino on 15 December.

Tamworth

This dispute is at a delicate stage but is all about a member with an illness who has been on leave for most of the year returning to work. He wanted to return in April, and we wanted a mediation/facilitation conducted to enable that. The way the matter has been handled by P&C is a reminder of a quote attributed to Winston Churchill that “Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else”. Now they are doing the right thing.

The mediation/facilitation, using our preferred facilitator, originally raised with the Council in June, will be next week, five months after we suggested it as the only way to resolve the issues. Too slow.