Hawkesbury Council Workers gain 3.5% wage increase
By Ruth Hulbert
USU Organiser
Nov 9, 2007
The United Services Union and Hawkesbury Council have negotiated a 3.5%
wage increase, which is great, but this falls short of the Union’s and
your delegates’ requests. We still want Hawkesbury Council to sign Referral Agreements to protect your rights at work.
Hawkesbury Council have so far declined the signing of Referral Agreements with the USU.
The Referral Agreements would ensure that any unresolved dispute or unfair dismissal would continue to be referred to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission for resolution.
If Hawkesbury Council does not want to sign agreement to protect your rights at work, well the question is WHY?????
It’s time to tell Council that you want your rights at work to be protected by Referral Agreements!!!!!!
Work choices is starting to effect Council employees in a big way – there is still no clear answer as to whether work choices applies to local government, councils can protect their employees from work choices by signing the above agreements with the USU but some, like Hawkesbury Council appear to be choosing to take their employees down the Work choices path.
Workchoices has made issues even more confusing and uncertain – consider the example below from another Council.
In an interesting development in the work choices debate it has come to the attention of the USU that a Council’s Human Resources Management are using WorkChoices to deny non-members access to the NSW Industrial Commission.
In a recent case, council advised a sacked ex-employee’s representative to withdraw an unfair dismissal lodged in the NSW Commission as Council is a Corporation and would argue that the NSW Commission had no jurisdiction because of WorkChoices. Consequently the matter is now in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (federal) where this applicant will have far fewer rights.
There is no doubting the fact that the federal unfair dismissal laws are inferior in terms of the rights available to workers. Non-union members at this, and possibly other councils, have a lot to lose compared to union members in this regard.
Sackings will no longer be regarded as unfair dismissal if employers state their sacking of employees was for “operational reasons”. For example if you work in a department with no union members Council could sack you for operational reasons during a restructure instead of consulting with the Union to save positions or consider redundancies.
Only one thing is certain in these uncertain times: the USU is there to protect your rights, union membership clearly delivers better rights for workers.
