Now, that is something to smile about, Gary!

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Published: Thursday, 24 January 2013 11:02

Our special HR Awards edition in December announced Lismore Council as our 2012 winner. But we believe people can learn from their mistakes and everyone is entitled to redemption and we applaud the immediate intervention by the GM Gary Murphy to wrestle the latest mishandled issue from HR. He not only agreed to pay the back money claimed to be owed by our most recently aggrieved member, but he ensured that it was paid that day!

The immediate agreement was welcome, the concurrent payment was nothing short of astonishing given the resistance of the Council’s HR Manager to any money being paid by the end of 2012 and, in response to what I put as a joke about whether it would be possible by June 2013, she thought that would be possible. Durr.

Well done, Gary. Your involvement may be overdue but it is welcome and appreciated.

There are still a number of problems at Lismore which need to be resolved as part of this dispute. Councils can’t write letters of offer where they deliberately withhold information which might make the offer less attractive for a prospective employee to accept the position - like there is no progression available because the rate of pay being offered is the top of the scale! That’s dishonest.

Resolution of this dispute will see agreement on a pro forma letter of offer which identifies the band and level of the Award, the grade, step and progression range in the salary system and the end of this bizarre notion that the  Council can establish a TRP that allows them to withhold Award increases if paying the increase would put the job over the limit of the TRP. And things have been so bad with HR we want the review of HR (being carried out by HR themselves!) finalised quickly with external input and discussions with the unions.