The Government has already decided to extend the deadline for comment on the Final Report of the Independent Review Panel - notwithstanding that the report remains unchanged from that originally available months ago. And, let’s face it, if people with a vested interest in making sure nothing happens want to contest the laudable and largely incontestable recommendations of the Independent Panel, surely they are capable of getting their fingers out and doing so.
Just as we felt sorry for Kevin Sproat’s efforts in 2001 when his thoughtful, incisive and scholarly report into potential amalgamations in the Sydney metropolitan area was received by the Government and then promptly filed, we already feel sorry for the members of the Independent Panel. Graham Sansom, Jude Munro and Glenn Inglis laboured mightily and produced a document capable of being rejected only by those who want nothing to change. Ever.
We are sick of financial basket case councils; those that are effectively trading insolvent; those claiming they can’t afford to pay market rates; those which would rather leave positions vacant and have other professionals pick up the slack;, where there is anxiety about whether they could pay staff entitlements if they all left tomorrow; which quibble about sending staff to training; contest flexible working arrangements as unaffordable and contrary to operational needs artificially established due to an inability to attract staff, and which can’t properly resource critical functions and needs, and we can’t wait for someone to do something.
We’ve had decades of Governments encouraging voluntary amalgamations and delivering bugger all. Enough is enough.
But when the Final Report was released and, for example, the proposed amalgamation of Strathfield was made public (surely, along with Hunters Hill one of the smallest local government areas in the world) the reaction from councillors was met with a response from the Premier that they needn’t worry. What Barry, you don’t want to read it first?
There are 65 recommendations in the Final Report and the depa Committee of Management has worked its way through them one by one. We support, or don’t oppose all of them, except some parts of recommendations 26 and 28.
We have also suggested that while we might support recommendation 1 on the establishment of an integrated Fiscal Responsibility Program and recommendation 61 to establish a Ministerial Advisory Group, we think it critical that there be representation on those bodies of the workforce: not just councillors.
We oppose recommendation 26 where it provides for full-time mayors and in some cases deputy mayors because we think these people are sufficiently self-important and pompous now that any perception of additional power or expansion of their role would make them even more self-important and pompous. And what would they do apart from ponce around the place, get in the way of the GM who really is running the business, and preen?
And, if it’s all about the money for these undervalued representatives, you’d think they’d be satisfied enough going along to meetings of LGNSW and picking up that ludicrous sitting fee. More meetings achieving very little? Yes please.
We especially support that part of recommendation 28 proposing mandatory training for councillors who should not be able to sit, or be paid, until they have completed the training successfully and that part proposing to properly define the roles of councillors and the GM to make it clear that the 1993 changes are reinforced, not diluted.
And we oppose that part of recommendation 28 to amend the standard contract provisions for general managers because we want to see the end of the standard contract and general managers permanently appointed to stop the run of sackings of good general managers by not so good councils.
Finally, and overriding everything else, the Government needs to give an undertaking immediately that whatever happens to the number of councils employing people, it will all be happen under the provisions of the Local Government (State) Award and the New South Wales Industrial Relations Act. None of these shared-staffing arrangements fantasised about in Dubbo where the risk would be that employees of these new bodies would be employed under the Fair Work Act - or worse, WorkChoices Part 2, which may be coming to a workplace near you.
A commitment by the Government now that employment will continue under the State Award would remove all of the anxieties about continued employment and entitlements. And make the remainder of this process so much more comfortable.
Click for high resolution image
You’ve got to love Alan Moir. Apart from him giving us permission to publish this image in high resolution format (instead of pinching it from the web like we usually do, thanks Alan) his cartoons always hit the mark in the most painful way for the target and illustrate better than most the truism of a picture painting a thousand words.
The Sydney Morning Herald on Friday 21 February announced “Major review of industrial relations laws planned” on its front page. Well, what a shock.
We knew that the Prime Minister couldn’t keep his hands off it much longer. What a pity, as Shaun Micallef says, that the Government can’t be like the Opposition, and have no ideology.
More of a pity that they can’t leave their hatreds and antagonisms to the side and get on with proper decision-making. Undermine Gonski and take money from public schooling, pander to the tobacco, food and alcohol lobbies, sack the Climate Commission, review school curricula, erode Medicare, wind back the National Disability Insurance Scheme? No worries, all these things end up on a to-do list.
At the top of the list will always be nailing unions and reducing the rights of employees at work.
It has been an awful couple of months for unions. For a start, investigative reporting by the Herald exposed relationships between organised crime and some officials of the CFMEU. The confusing headline linked unions and gangsters at Barangaroo and clearly many of us were concerned that was a bit of a rude way to talk about that nice Mr Packer doing the right thing by the economy by fleecing fat punters from other countries. But no, it was a couple of incidental and low level officials in the CFMEU and bikie gangs. Officials already gone from the union.
And then, the bloke we always knew to be a crook, liar and low life, Craig Thomson, was convicted of fraud. Following the President of his union Michael Williamson, who confessed to a variety of criminal activities, fraud and everything else, also at the expense of the Health Services Union. These two blokes really are traitors to the principles of unionism and their actions make us all suffer.
Employees are entitled to join a union (especially a respectful and polite one like us) so there is someone to go to for advice and assistance in times of trouble and someone to provide some expertise and advice. And it’s always nice that you don’t have to argue about your own employment conditions with your employer - after all, employing people is a much more powerful position than being an employee. Nothing stops your employer having a phalanx of lawyers and helpers to advise.
The Royal Commission will do nothing more than put the boot into unions for a long, long time when a proper police investigation would be better targeted at those known to be involved in crime and with a quicker result. Jail the crooks, the overwhelming majority of unions and union officials have nothing to hide.
WorkChoices was one of the reasons for the demise of John Howard - only the second Prime Minister in Australian history to not just lose government, but to lose his own seat in doing so.
While industrial relations law and practices oscillate between being more favourable to employers for some time and then back with a bit more balance towards employees, and vice versa, everyone recognised that WorkChoices would mean the loss of their right to bargain through a union, the end of awards covering everyone and the introduction of individual contracts when nothing was sacred, nothing was safe and everything was up for grabs.
Let’s see what happens in this review.
Whether you decide to be a member of depa or other unions is entirely up to you. You can’t be made to join and unions make significant efforts to make membership attractive. A range of services, often journey claim insurance when governments antagonistic to protection of workers injured on their way to or from work remove protection, a free day off on union picnic day and access to advice and assistance when you need it.
Lots of people decide they don’t need that but then sometimes they find themselves in trouble.
What do you do if you’re not a union member and you suddenly find that you are one of the people being investigated in an ICAC investigation, just like they’re doing at the moment at one Council?
What do you do if you’re not a union member and you’re off on parental leave and when you want to come back to work part time, the Council says they want your car back?
There are lots of examples, of course, of things that can happen where you need instant advice and assistance, but these are two real examples of people who thought they could look after themselves and then found that maybe they couldn’t: trying to join depa when they already had a problem, a bit like ringing up an insurer when the front of your house is on fire and wanting a cover note.
depa, like other unions, has a policy of not providing services to people for things that predate their membership. You’d be surprised how many people want to argue about this but the Committee of Management has resolved the very clear policy where there is no discretion.
Join tomorrow and we cover you for things that happen after you join.
Want to risk it?
Section 353 of the Local Government Act requires employees who want to, or are doing work outside the Council that relates to or conflicts with their council job, to declare that work and seek the general manager’s approval.
It’s not a general opportunity to pry into the private lives of employees, look under their beds or do anything else quite that furtive or prurient.
We ran a big dispute against Sydney Council in 1994 when the prurient there decided they wanted employees to declare all work. All unions were involved, members of the three unions had placed bans on complying with the proposed new arrangements, the Labor Council of NSW at the time appeared in support and the DLG eventually advised the Council that while they could develop their own policies on managing other work, whatever they did had to be consistent with the Act.
As part of the dispute the Industrial Relations Commission directed that the Council not proceed with this policy until such time as an agreement had been reached with the unions in dispute or the dispute had been resolved by the Commission. Subsequently the Council agreed that it would only require employees to declare work for approval that was consistent with section 353 and that related to or conflicted with their Council job.
But, while this agreement was made between the unions and the Council in the Commission, without advice to those unions which had the agreement with the Council, the Council reverted to the old practice - looking under the bed, peeking through your window, going through your drawers. If it doesn’t relate to or conflict with the job, it’s none of the council’s business. It’s an invasion of your privacy.
Adversarial jurisdictions like industrial tribunals rely upon parties bargaining in good faith and sticking to agreements that they have made. There are few things worse than one party breaching an agreement or abandoning it without telling the other parties.
It may have been accidental, changing faces in HR can’t always be aware of the history that precedes them and we are pursuing Sydney Council now. They don’t really do themselves any favours by responding to our comprehensive argument that they are reviewing it and will respond “in due course”. Sir Humphrey would be proud.
We regularly remind members about the purpose of section 353 and ask you to let us know if your council is doing the right thing. The Council can only ask you to declare and seek approval for work which relates to or conflict with - nothing more and nothing less.
Please let us know if any councils are out there doing what Sydney is doing.
Everyone is distressed. This is very, very sad news for our regulars.
Well, what is it? You don’t like beautiful places, you don’t want to hang out with your workmates, you don’t want good company and a good laugh, you don’t like a challenge, you’ve got better things to do?
In January we announced that the golf day was on again on union picnic day at Blackheath and immediately heard from the usual enthusiastic players. Even teams from as far away as Bega and Shoalhaven look forward to this day. We received a few more but after that, not much at all.
The lack of interest (and a double booking at Blackheath by an office manager of ours who doesn’t work here anymore and had thought it made sense because we’ve been playing there every second Friday for a decade to book the first Friday) made the Committee resolve, sadly, to cancel the day this year.
We hope that the day will continue on Friday 13 March 2015. It’s in your hands.
We’ve been operating without an office manager for the past month or so and have a new person starting next Monday. She will send you all an email introducing herself next week.
We apologise if you have had administrative issues that haven’t been dealt with over the past four weeks - you may have tried to join using the website, you may have emailed admin@depa and you may have needed a list of financial members for the purposes of getting the day off properly on picnic day on 14 March.
All those things will work their way through but if you do need a list of financial members, ring me.
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