Pizza Man says
"I wouldn't bother answering…"

 

 

In a real snub to union members at Hurstville Council, Pizza Man, General Manager Victor Lampe has told his HR Manager he “wouldn’t bother” responding any further to our investigation of why he shouted pizzas for the freeloaders on Union Picnic Day. In the March issue of depaNews we reported that employees at Hurstville who had chosen not to be union members, and were not entitled to Union Picnic Day under the Local Government (State) Award, were all provided with a free lunch by the General Manager.

We were interested to find out why and in the March issue said we would pursue this and publish the Council's response.

Well, it's been hard to squeeze anything out of Victor. He is far more interested in feeding people who refuse to join unions than he is of responding to us.

First, he had his HR Manager respond to our e-mail and she said "lunch was a small gesture of appreciation in the circumstances". She rejected our suggested explanations but the circumstances are intriguing.

These are people not entitled to a day off by virtue of the choice they have made about union membership. They're entitled to decide they don’t want to join a union and while they can still receive the benefits the unions have won over the years in the Award or the various precedents protecting employees, they wouldn’t ordinarily be entitled to anything else - like a free lunch for choosing not to be union member. We asked “are you saying that the free lunch was a small gesture of appreciation to people who, had they been union members, would not have been there at all?"

The HR Manager responded that "non-membership of the union was not the reason lunch is provided." She did confess, in reply to one of our questions, that the Council provided the lunch, not the GM personally. So it came from public monies.

So, we asked “if non-membership was not the reason lunch was provided, what was?” And when this was ignored we wrote to Pizza Man himself and he copied us in to a message to the HR Manager:

“I wouldn't bother answering his additional question as I think you have already provided enough information".

We remain blissfully unaware of the GM’s motivation in providing a free lunch to people who already get lots of things for nothing. Neither do the employees at Hurstville understand. The union members, of course, wondering when they get their pizza or the apology for Victor’s insensitivity and the non-members feeling much more appreciated by the GM for being at work when they had no entitlement to be anywhere else.

We wouldn’t want to be unfair to Victor, so you can check the unedited exchange here.

And we hear that the GM even entertained the non-members to maximise their pleasure for the day.

Victor Lampe the entertainer

 

Some progress in Drug and Alcohol dispute

 

The LGSA has had some success in using the recommendation of Deputy President Grayson in one of depa’s drug and alcohol disputes (IRC 155/11 see March issue) for the Upper Hunter councils to consider participating in the forthcoming trial of the Industry Guidelines on alcohol and other drugs. We expect to be able to make a formal announcement of which councils will participate in the trial and the anticipated timeframe soon.

But so far, no progress with the urine sniffers at Upper Hunter - who remain resolutely of the view that they want to urine test everyone, including applicants for jobs, to see what they've been doing over the two or three weeks prior to the test.

Upper Hunter GM Darryl Dutton rallies pre-employment drug testers

 

Last month we published an extract of a decision in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission which criticized urine testing as being intrusive and not as effective as saliva testing in identifying impairment at the time of the test. It is now regarded as an authority in the Federal jurisdiction and will be highly respected in the NSW Commission.

In fact, we know from information provided by advocates of saliva testing who know what they are talking about, that you can, for example, smoke a joint before work and it won't be picked up in your urine until sometime after lunch. And by then, no-one is impaired anymore anyway.

We have offered Upper Hunter the opportunity of participating in the trial of saliva testing and the Industry Guidelines. After all, if saliva is better at picking up people who are impaired at the time of the test, then it makes absolutely no sense to use more intrusive testing. And particularly a more intrusive test that tells you more about what people have been doing when they haven't been at work.

It would have made sense for Upper Hunter to acknowledge the essential wisdom of the AIRC decision and that the regime they have chosen just doesn’t do for them what they say is the intention of the testing. Ignoring this dignified exit option just means they are bloody-minded.

We have asked them for a response by 5pm on Friday 8 April.

Please also keep us in touch with developments about drug and alcohol testing at your Council if those developments do not respect the Industry Guidelines developed by the employers and unions in the industry.

 

Local Government Super wins SuperRatings Infinity Award

 

LGS CEO Peter Lambert and Chair of LGS Investment Committee Ian Robertson

 

Local Government Super has been named the Infinity Award winner for 2011 by independent super research company SuperRatings, reinforcing its position as the leader in sustainable behaviour in the superannuation industry.

The Award was presented at the Conference of Major Super Funds last week.

The Infinity Award recognises the super fund that is leading the industry in the pursuit of genuine responsible investment principles and open communication of these processes to its members. SuperRatings assesses Infinity Award candidates based on three fixed criteria - investment, engagement and behaviour.

Bill Hartnett is the Sustainability Manager at LGS. He said he was pleased the Fund’s internal culture and sustainable and responsible investment practices are being recognised.

"LGSS has a strong and long-standing commitment to sustainability, which is guided by the vision of our Board of Trustees and the management team. Winning the Infinity Award recognises that our approach is industry best practice.”

LGS has approximately $3.1 billion invested in responsible investment strategies.

This is the most recent recognition of what has been a long-standing commitment to investing responsibly. LGS was awarded Sustainable Super Fund of the Year in 2010 at the Australian Sustainability Awards and earlier in the year was rated Australia's leading superannuation fund for managing the investment risks posed by climate change in the Asset Owners’ Disclosure Project on climate change - a joint initiative between the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees and The Climate Institute.

The 2011 results for the current Asset Owners’ Disclosure Project will be announced in the next few weeks and hopes at LGS are high.

If you would like more details about what the LGS does to deserve this Award, you should check out the new, exciting and fabulously attractive new website and if you'd like to hear more from Bill about what responsible investment is, check this webcast out.

As a historical note, LGS separated from First State and State Super from 1 July 1997 and almost immediately started looking at whether it was necessary to invest in companies which did bad things. The Board resolved in 1999 to never again own tobacco shares (a product which even when even used in accordance with the manufacturer's directions can kill the user and also sometimes those they live or work with who they smoke over). This decision followed advice from the Fund’s external Asset Consultant that LGS could safely not own tobacco stock with no ill effect.

Later, in 2002, the Fund started implementing a process with its Australian shares that allowed it to effectively not hold shares of companies with poor environmental practices, or primarily involved in gambling, uranium mining or processing etc. As this is a separate process, LGS can show that adding this additional level of risk to the analysis of the companies it owns, has made money.

And as a final aside, post Fukushima is a good time to not be owning uranium shares. If the reactor melts down we’ll all be Fukushima-ed.

 

Let's sign up some new members

depa has not had a fee increase for six years. At $398 we are much, much cheaper than the LGEA (currently $610 and to go up in July) and are now, for the first time in history, are cheaper than the USU at $420. Cheaper is the wrong word, how about more reasonably priced or better value?

We can continue to do this, providing energetic, informative and entertaining services to members, only as long as we keep replacing the members who resign or retire with new members. Ideally, we would like to recruit more than we need to keep the membership numbers static so that we grow in size.

Nothing helps with recruitment like bad behavior by a council. When the Wagga Wagga dispute started last year we only had two members and now we have thirteen. Nothing focuses attention like a problem at your own council but at councils like Wagga Wagga or Bankstown we establish precedents that provide benefits across the industry.

And we were able to get a leave reserved clause on BPB accreditation that allows us to argue this issue during the three and a half year life of the 2010 Award when we get a clear handle on what being accredited by the BPB actually means. This is a benefit for everyone accredited by the BPB, not just our members.

If you are reading this but are not a member, although eligible to join, why don’t you ring me to talk about the benefits of membership? Or talk to people who are members already at your council about the benefits?

If you are a member, or a delegate, we provide a bottle of great wine for every two members signed up this year. All you need to do is have their application form noted that you were the person responsible for the recruitment of the new member, and when you have two, we will send you a bottle.

As long as you don’t drink it before your pre-employment medical at Upper Hunter.

 

What will life be like in the new New South Wales?

Well, the purge is complete and old Labor has been well and truly dumped.

For us, the critical areas are what will the Government do about the NSW Industrial Relations Commission, local government generally and planning.

We understand from UnionsNSW that the Opposition prior to the election gave undertakings that they will make no changes to the Industrial Relations Commission in their first term which would have a negative impact on those employees working under awards or enterprise agreements of the NSW Commission. That's good news for us because the NSW Commission is extremely user-friendly and has been a great assistance to local government over the decades.

What will happen about local government remains to be seen. The new Minister for Local Government Don Page, is the member for Ballina and, while he might have been hoping to be the Minister for Small Business, has ended up with local government. A lot of councils fit into the category of small businesses anyway but we can't help but think he may be a little disappointed.

We've already written to him asking for a short meeting to welcome him into the job, talk to him about some things that we think are important or that should change, and to cheer him up generally if he does feel disappointed.

And on planning, while on the face of it the end of developer manipulation of the planning system will be welcome, the cosy relationship with the pub owners and developers was appropriated by NSW Labor from the other side, who believe that relationship is rightfully theirs, in the first place.

Goodbye and good riddance Part 3A. Wonder what will happen now?

 

Have a good holiday, Louise

Our Office Manager Louise Bickerton (who does everything that needs to be done here that I don’t do) is off on holidays for three weeks and back on Tuesday 3 May.

This will be a bad time to ring and ask for a tax invoice, or discuss the history of your feepaying, or expect your bottle of wine as a recruitment reward to be posted immediately but otherwise, things will continue.

You might get the message machine if you ring but you will still get a return call that day or early the next if the message is late in the day.

Ian Robertson
Secretary