May depaNews

Uh oh. I know what you’re thinking. “Did he amalgamate six councils or only five?” Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself. But being this is a 17 seat majority government, with the most powerful electoral mandate in the world and recommendations from an independent panel that would blow your Council clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk?

A rigid template of what constitutes fitness for the future is being hammered onto the 152 local government areas and no-one really knows how things will look when the dust settles. Probably not even the Government.

But everyone knows local government needs to be reformed, and the reform process will involve changes in boundaries, but no one wants anything to happen to their own Council. NIMBYism is both natural and understandable but it won’t get in the way of a rampant Government zealous about reform. How rampant, or reforming, or even how effective any changes might be remains to be seen but Premier Baird took the Fit for the Future strategy and process to the election and had a resounding win. An easy opponent yes, but a resounding win nevertheless.

30 June is the deadline for councils to be able to establish that they are financially sustainable for the future and should be left alone.

Councillors with far more important things to do than worry about long-term financial sustainability are justifiably concerned. Busy pursuing their own individual self-interest; looking after their mates or the local Racing Club; ignoring their own council’s cleanup orders under the Protection of the Environment Operations Act; having the ICAC looking over their shoulders; dabbling in the general manager’s responsibilities; or persecuting staff; or being in a minority and trying to ignore majority resolutions of councils; or who are the subject of performance improvement orders from the Minister for Local Government; and a variety of other distractions, who is looking after their ratepayers and citizens?

The council’s employees are, that’s who.

Local politicians are all well and good. As citizens we want immediate access to our political representatives even though we are invariably left empty-handed and disappointed. More importantly we want good service and services and it’s the employees who provide that.

It’s the staff who provide the services; the public face of local government; the consultative mechanisms on planning, amenity and quality of life; pick up the recyclables and waste; maintain the libraries and provide services in literacy, literature and research and education; maintain and provide childcare; look after the roads; protect and enforce food, public health and environmental standards; protect land use, waterways and disappearing species; remind us of the joys of the arts; ensure safe construction and building standards (unless the private sector gets in the way) and happily do so while the elected officials are usually doing something else entirely - sometimes just getting in the way of the Council’s efficiency by sacking general managers, for unspecified reasons, often good and high performing employees, but not kowtowing sufficiently to new regimes, and with 39 weeks’ pay to see them on their way from councils whose finances can be parlous, marginal or propped up by debt.

There are good councillors, smart, interesting and rewarding people with values they live by and a commitment to working in local government but employees understand that the reputation of the industry reflects the councillors who are the lowest common denominator.

The Government will do what it will do. The frenzy of interest in joint organisations will spare all those elected representatives to keep doing whatever it is that drives them and put at risk employment conditions of local government workers unless the joint organisations employ them under the State Award. The Government MUST deny the zealots and the sabre rattlers seduced by the opportunity to reduce standards and head towards Federal industrial legislation.

Whether councils are found to be fit or some other appropriate F word, employees need to have protections in place to allow any process to be introduced fairly as part of building a view to a sustainable and high performance future.

Do you feel lucky?

Oh no, you’re not.

Every now and again, members of ours (and the other unions as well) get projected through the firmament and find themselves and their careers taking them to the top. We have a good number of members who are general managers, as does the LGEA and the USU. These are employees who understand the importance of being protected in their employment and that the need for protection doesn’t diminish the higher up you go in the organisation.

Then there are those who decide they can look after themselves. For us, that’s a tiny minority of members, but it’s timely to remind everyone that the standard contract for senior staff and general managers doesn’t remove the right to be represented, nor the capacity for depa, or the other unions, to act on behalf of their members and protect them from the vulnerability of that higher level of employment. At that level, being able to look after yourself is an illusion.

The most vulnerable employee in local government is the general manager and, while the frenzy of activity of good general managers being sacked after the last local government election has calmed down, the risk remains.

Making the decision that as bosses they are no longer vulnerable and need representation is demonstrably a bad call in local government. Bad judgements are not made in isolation. Like in kangaroos in the landscape, once you’ve seen one, you realise there are many.

The closer you get to the top, poor judgement and decisions that can cost you dearly.

In March we reported on the attempts by the GM at Tamworth Regional Council to remove the nine day fortnight - a system that had operated, by agreement and without complaint or examination for more than a decade. Neither the article in depaNews, nor the correspondence we had exchanged with the Council, nor observations we had made in the IRC about the process were appreciated by the GM.

So the Council, which has retrenched staff because of budgetary difficulties and saw the removal of the nine day fortnight as something they needed to do as they struggled with their fitness for the future, decided to hire a Sydney Senior Council to travel to Newcastle for a hearing barely longer than an hour, to complain and seek directions against depa for being unkind. Or not bargaining in good faith, as they put it.

Directions or orders were sought in proceedings for depa to retract everything we have said, to apologise unreservedly, to not allow the Secretary of the union to appear in the proceedings any longer and to generally behave in a more polite and subservient manner, like the staff are expected to behave at Tamworth. Just as well there are no penal provisions in the New South Wales Industrial Relations Act.

All these directions and orders were rejected by the Commission, notwithstanding the gravitas with which they were put by Senior Council in front of a jam-packed court including the GM, the Deputy GM and Legal Counsel, the HR Manager and two representatives from LGNSW. No shortage of heavyweights there. A lot of people who, we are sure, could have been far more productive doing something else.

But while Deputy President Harrison rejected the extreme requests, he did agree to set the matter down for further conference in Tamworth in June - something we and the two supporting unions had asked for on the first occasion the dispute had been considered.

They say that good negotiation is getting people to do what you want and having them think it was their idea all along. We acknowledge it was a great idea of Tamworth’s to suggest that we next meet in Tamworth.

Somewhat coyly we haven’t disclosed the name of the Council where we have been having a running brawl with some 19th-century minds about a member returning to work part-time after her second child.

This is the Council that refused a request for a 31 hour four day week and demanded that she return to work full time. You’ve had your maternity leave, get back to work! So much for the changes in social attitudes over the last 50 years and the provisions of the legislation and the Award.

We made them provide a three month trial and the Commission tried to help them with encouragement to develop performance criteria so they could establish whether there were operational reasons to reject the request that this arrangement continue. There were no operational reasons to reject the application in the first place and, after almost 3 months, tail between their legs, the Council conceded and provided an extension of the part-time arrangements.

We give advice to parents wanting to return to work on a part-time basis all the time. Sometimes every week. There are some councils where parents returning to work are supported, where a variety of arrangements are put in place to ensure they don’t come back too early, feeling guilty and compromised in their responsibilities to their family, and are then joyfully welcomed back to fill the gap created by their absence. Welcome back.

And occasionally there are the laggards, the councils stuck in the 19th century or where the old blokes think they are part of the misogyny of Mad Men, who think they can reject requests for part-time work, not for operational reasons, but for political or ideological reasons. It’s not the 19th century, it’s not even the 20th century and it certainly isn’t 1950.

These councils give scant regard to their obligations under the Award and the Fair Work Act and not only look ancient, uncompromising and obsolete, but they then have that painfully reinforced when they find they can’t get what they want.

Those accredited by the BPB will be aware that the NSW Government has established a review of the BPB’s legislation and effectiveness. We met with Michael Lambert, who has been charged with the responsibility and put our views and there is now a discussion paper out inviting further consultation and responses.

Here is a link. If you are accredited and have a view, use the link to express a view.

Over the last few months, the Committee of Management has been considering a thorough review of our rules. The rules of industrial organisations like ours are regulated under the NSW Industrial Relations Act 1996 by the NSW Industrial Registrar. Unions and employers’ organisations operate under rules which reflect provisions of the Industrial Relations Act or provide generally for good governance, effective administration and protections and fairness to members.

The Committee of Management at the last meeting on 11 May resolved to modernise the rules, improve administration, better manage how members become members and continue as members, how better to remove members who disappear and don’t tell us, and to reflect electronic communication, financial controls and record-keeping.

These changes were agreed in principle by the Industrial Registrar and will now be submitted as a formal application. This isn’t a very exciting process but sometimes good governance and transparency aren’t.

You can expect the changes to be announced in our next issue and then on our site.