Really, is there no imagination in that Federal Government? Clearly emboldened by their unpredicted return, PM Scott Morrison has announced that the government will review the industrial relations system and initiate steps “provoking the “animal spirits” in our economy by removing regulatory and bureaucratic barriers to businesses investing and creating more jobs”.

Speaking to the WA Chamber of Commerce the PM announced this week that they needed “to get Australians off the economic sidelines and on the field again”. And while he did say “industrial relations changes “must be evidenced-based, protect the rights and entitlements of workers and have clear gains for the economy and for working Australians”, it’s hard not to be sceptical given John Howard’s WorkChoices and Tony Abbott’s WorkChoices II.

But while the initial announcement from the PM mentioned protecting the rights of workers, the Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter has now announced a review of the “better off overall” test in enterprise bargaining, potential changes to unfair dismissal laws and a review of what constitutes a “casual” employee. The first two sound like trouble but a proper review of what constitutes a casual and casual employment is grossly overdue. Casual employment is an area where local government runs a risk, employing people as casuals, who are really part-time permanent employees...

Accompanying this reform is their Ensuring Integrity Bill, making it easier to disqualify lawbreaking unions and officials. Nothing for depa to fear, of course, but there must be a way of initiating another review of industrial relations that doesn’t have in the background their historic hatred of the CFMMEU.

It’s one thing to understand that if a building site has a CFMMEU flag flying from a crane that it’s going to automatically be a safer workplace, but wouldn’t it make all of our lives easier and more comfortable if they can do it without the criminals, sexual harassers and threatening boofheads making the trade union movement look like thugs.

We wrote to welcome the Hon Shelley Hancock MP as the newly appointed Minister for Local Government, delighted to have a minister who has spent decades of her life devoted to local government as a councillor on Shoalhaven and understands the industry and its needs.

In her inaugural speech in the legislative assembly on 28 May 2003 (always a good way of getting to know people) she spoke fondly of her years as a teacher at Ulladulla High School. Nice to think that she had a career beginning as a teacher in state schools. Even nicer to note that in acknowledging her father’s contribution to her development, having “planted the Liberal seed“,  the Minister noted “Dad and I argued very little, except perhaps about trade unionism”. As good a confession as any that she was a member of the Teachers Federation at Ulladulla and we note her recognition of responsible unionism. She will like what we have done by cooperation between the unions and the employers in local government over the last three decades.

We met her Senior Adviser who already had a significant depth of knowledge, particularly about the things that concern us - private certification, the value of the cooperative approach in negotiating Local Government State Award for the last quarter of a century and our historic view on the blatant unfairness of term contracts for senior staff and how they facilitate unfair treatment.

We’ve already seen too many examples of councils getting rid of GM’s without explanation but also of GM’s sacking directors using the 38 weeks’ pay provision of the Standard Contract which doesn’t require explanation. What the ICAC describes as “no reason”.

We saw it in 2015 when the GM at Mid-Western sacked the Director of Planning and Environment and the Director of Corporate Services in the middle of an ICAC investigation and we saw it this year when the GM of Narrabri Council sacked the Director of Development and Economic Growth. We wrote to him and he responded “the Council makes no admission to any breaches of the employment contract” but then later in the letter remedied one of the breaches by agreeing to pay the SOORT increase but didn’t acknowledge it was a breach.  

This was a messy termination at best. It was concluded with a breach of section 337 of the Local Government Act by not consulting with all councillors before the sacking and commenced with an issue about placing the member on the standard contract for senior staff six weeks or so before the position was made senior staff!

depa has filed a section 106 Unfair Contract application in the Supreme Court.

Interestingly, the ICAC in their report at the conclusion of the Mid-Western investigation, criticises the ability to sack general managers with “no reason”. They said:

.. the “no reason” provisions in the standard contract, however, could create an uncertain employment environment for a general manager. The Commission’s concern is that such uncertainty could be used improperly to influence the actions of a general manager. Councils, Local Government NSW and, given its investigative role, the OLG, should be aware that, rather than a simple issue of employer-employee breakdown, the termination of a general manager of a council under “no reasons” provisions may indicate that councils have attempted to improperly influence a general manager.

And that applies equally to the termination of other senior staff as well.

Significantly, the senior staff provisions in the Local Government Act were modelled on employment arrangements for the Senior Executive Service in the NSW Public Sector. It flowed into local government, notwithstanding the clear differences between the two levels of government and the acknowledgement in the industry of the tendency for councillors to occasionally threaten both GM’s and directors.

Five years ago Premier Mike Baird resolved to transition the overwhelming majority of the SES employees into permanent positions but this reform hasn’t flowed into local government yet.

The ICAC’s Operation Dasha into the former Canterbury has dealt with issues about employment under the standard contract for both the GM and the Director of Planning and depa made a submission to the ICAC with recommendations on planning and employment to avoid the problem is the subject of the investigation.

 

Councils regularly review their flexitime, or nine day fortnight arrangements or whatever, and generally do so trying to provide better flexibility for staff while at the same time protecting services to the community. We’ve been dealing with two councils where management took the opportunity to try and remove an entitlement for staff at the same time.

Clarence Valley has had a rigid nine day fortnight arrangement for more than a decade where, over the years,  different managers had agreed to flexible starting or finishing times to meet employee needs - but continue high levels of service. So when they announced to staff that they wanted to look at introducing a flexitime system with flexibility on start and finishing times, it should have been a relatively easy task. Who could say no?

The union representatives on the Consultative Committee were delighted to participate in the development of a more flexible system based upon the nine day fortnight but this wasn’t what management wanted - they talked up the flexibility, introduced the possibility that the nine day fortnight may not be as regular as it had operated in the past but, without really announcing it, proposed changes to the way hours were counted so that if the new system came in, every employee would need to work an additional 47 minutes for every public holiday. And 47 minutes added up over the year makes it pretty close to a full working day.

Then management battened down the hatches. They ignored the cooperative approach available on the consultative committee; argued that the consultative committee union representatives didn’t reflect the view of employees generally; ran information sessions where they discouraged questions from employees, particularly about the dreaded 47 minutes; and when the USU filed the dispute, uniting the three unions in opposition, the Council organise a rigged survey of staff providing a choice between the nine day fortnight (but threatening to remove any existing flexibilities that existed) or the flexitime system they were promoting.

All the while, not being open about the dreaded 47 minutes and complaining that they didn’t understand what it was the unions wanted.

The dispute had two compulsory conferences in the IRC before Commissioner Murphy in Sydney but one of the complications with the new IRC at Parramatta is that the courts have the technology to allow parties to phone in. And this means that with examples like Clarence Valley, the bosses can sit in the general manager’s office, rolling their eyes, being uncooperative and feigning ignorance about the unions’ concerns.

But when the Commissioner turns up in Grafton on 3 June he gets us all agreeing in a very cooperative process to dropping off the theft of the 47 minutes and adopting the flexibilities proposed in the new arrangement without compromising the nine day fortnight.

And then three of the managers gave testimonials to how good their bosses were and entertained us all. Not quite the fat lady singing, but it was over.

The details are being worked out in a cooperative manner now with Council having finally understood what it was the unions wanted and having agreed to it. It’s hard to understand what people want when you don’t listen.

And at Queanbeyan-Palerang, new software in payroll had apparently required changes to the way the flexible working hours system there had been operating. It’s always a problem buying new software that doesn’t accommodate your current circumstances but it was presented as forcing a need to transfer to a two week settlement period .

But, management use the opportunity to pursue the forfeiting of the 13^th RDO in the year. Blatant, impossible to properly justify and, just like Clarence, not listening or trying to find a solution. But again, just like Clarence, under pressure they withdrew the proposal so that the new accounting arrangements could operate alongside those preserved entitlements.

The lesson in both these councils is that if management wants to review flexible working hours or RDO arrangements, always read the fine print.

Well, what a mess. First it was the Opal Tower, then the Mascot Tower and everyone running for cover. Whose fault is it, private certifiers struggling to get indemnity insurance, everyone prepared to acccept certification from everyone else, poor standards on clearly flammable cladding, other lightweight building materials, building blocks of flats on soil known to contain an aquifer running down to Botany Bay? One day someone might wonder about building on flood prone land!

Yesterday the Government released the Building Stronger Foundations Discussion Paper, implementing the Government Response to the Shergold Weir Building Confidence Report released in February 2018. Yes, a year and a half ago.

Here is a link to the discussion paper and submissions are invited to close at “11:59pm, Wednesday, 24 July 2019.” That’s a Minute to Midnight, a suitably dramatic conclusion to the consultation period. Don’t be late.