Local Government State Award 2020 - are we there yet?

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Published: Tuesday, 12 May 2020 13:20

The State Award is invariably made late in June for three years and operating from 1 July. We are all used to the idea of pay increases from the first pay period after 1 July and, as we get perilously close to needing to get a final document together, there are significant “in principle” agreed changes already, and only really two issues to finalise.

The USU in September last year convened a roundtable in Parliament House, opened by the Minister for Local Government, and involving everyone with an interest in bullying and mental health in the industry - LGNSW, the unions, workers compensation insurers, Local Government Superannuation, the Office of Local Government etc. Everyone got on board philosophically with the need to dramatically address what was acknowledged to be a widespread problem in the industry.

Unlike the Fair Work Act, the NSW Industrial Relations Act 1996 does not have specific provisions about bullying and the capacity for employees to seek orders preventing bullying. And it seems remiss, in this climate of a greater recognition across the industry, that the State Award doesn’t specifically address bullying either.

We are working on appropriate wording to provide protections for employees in the industry from this pernicious and difficult to manage phenomenon. Bullying can damage employees’ lives just as much as physical accidents and injuries.

And the second issue, is money. Just as there are GMs around the place looking at forfeiting their 2020 pay increases, and thinking that others should do so as well, that influence is being felt by LGNSW when we look at what sort of pay increase there should be from 1 July.

The complication of agreeing to take a fall on salary increases (which are really only economic adjustments catching up for cost increases over the preceding twelve months) in the interests of continuing people in jobs is that money not spent on pay increases isn’t then automatically spent keeping people in work.

And we know of many councils where any savings are just as likely to find their way into improve catering for councillors, and other less worthy spending.

More news, next month.

Local Government (COVID-19) Splinter Award 2020 to be made on Tuesday 14 April

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Published: Thursday, 09 April 2020 12:20

The USU yesterday sent a Member Update to all their members advising there would be an application made for a Splinter Award which would provide protections and certainty for employees during this COVID-19 crisis. We were going to wait until Tuesday to advise you all about what it was, what the benefits were and how it was our view it would have limited application for our members.

The application was filed late yesterday by LGNSW, and we’ve now been advised that the Award will be heard at 3pm before Commissioner Murphy in the Industrial Relations Commission on Tuesday 14 April. It seemed prudent to wait until the Award was made that afternoon to send this information to you, but because there is already information out there, we are acting now.

As you know, there are plenty of councils out there where general managers think their only option is to stand employees down because there is no useful work that can be done. This may be due to orders made  by the NSW Government closing pools, gymnasiums, leisure centres, libraries etc but there is no general right to stand down under the State Award and there would need to be individual applications made by individual councils.

We know that there were many GMs frothing at the mouth at the prospect of standing employees down and for the last week and a half, LGNSW and the unions have been developing a Splinter Award to provide some more flexibilities for employees who will remain at work, and salary protections for any who may not.

Our view is that our members are generally protected and it will be unlikely that councils will want to close down their functions because almost everything you do is required to be done by legislation, with appeal dates and requirements about certain things happening within timeframes, and in the absence of some kind of moratorium by the NSW Government on those obligations, the work will simply have to be done. Phew.

We know of some members who reckon they’ve got nine months’ worth of planning to do but it does seem highly probable that everyone else will be protected, certainly for the life of the three months lockdown currently being managed by the NSW Police.

The Splinter Award will be made by agreement of the Award parties - LGNSW USU, LGEA, the Nurses and depa- on Tuesday afternoon and the only issue not yet known is which councils will be opting in so that the Award applies to them and their employees. We won’t know that until Tuesday morning, so in a perfect world it would have been smarter to keep this information until then. As we know, we’re not operating in a perfect world.

Here is a link to Splinter Award application, remembering that there are no councils yet listed in what is described as “Schedule A-Employers Covered by this Award”, but what the Award does is this:

1. it will operate for twelve months from the date it is made and only in relation to decisions made responding to the current pandemic.
2. Clause 10 allows employees to be directed to carry out suitable alternative duties, consistent with the current arrangements and ensures that appropriate payments will be made.
3. 3 allows the employer and an employee to agree to the employee taking accrued annual leave at half pay, and
4. 4 allows employees with less than five year’s service and the employer’s consent to take long service leave in advance.
5. Clause 11 regulates employees working from home, which is everyone’s preference if it is practical (hurry up to those councils who are dawdling!)
6. Clause 12 starts the critical provisions in what is described as ”Part 6-Close Down”.
7. 1 requires the Council to explore suitable alternative duties if “normal duties at their normal place of work” are not available.
8. Clause 13 “No Useful Work applies only to permanent full-time and permanent part-time employees and only and if the employer “has no useful work for employees” (as we say, something councils will find difficult with our members) then employees can be temporarily stood down but only under certain conditions.
9. 3 requires any employee stood down or partially stood down to be paid “COVID-19 special leave at their salary system rate of pay for four weeks” or until useful work can be provided.
10. 5 regulates how COVID-19 special leave is taken.
11. 10 provides that a special rate of pay will be paid for an employee who remains stood down or partially stood down. The special rate is $858.20 and is payable for up to 3 months.
12. And 13.12 allows that employees can apply to have the $858.20 supplemented with accrued annual or long service leave, to bring it up to their ordinary pay.

That’s the most useful summary we can provide and we remind you all that you can only be stood down where the Council “has no useful work for employees”.

The Splinter Award does not affect the rights of employers, consistent with the Local Government State Award 2017, to give employees notice of a requirement to take excess leave.

We will send you a further depaNews like this on Tuesday afternoon after the Award is made so you know which councils are to be covered by it.

And we also remind you that if a Council contemplates standing down our members, and it’s clear there is useful work available, we will nail the bastards and prevent that happening.

Here is a link to Splinter Award 14 April.

Link to Minister's letter 22.10.20

Link to our reply 23.10.20

Local Government Poseurs want to stand you down –

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Published: Wednesday, 01 April 2020 12:49

“Let me at ‘em”

Yesterday, amongst three videoconferences with the other parties to the State Award trying to resolve the 2020 Award, we wrote to the Minister for Local Government and the Office of Local Government.

In the Award negotiations there had been a general discussion about what appeared to be a lack of action by Government to respond to the COVID-19 crisis in local government (something more positive than the more bloodthirsty general managers who keep shaking their fists at LGNSW demanding the right to stand staff down) so it seemed a good idea to write to people critical to the financial survival of local government.

It seemed obvious, although it hadn’t been explicitly said by the Prime Minister on Monday afternoon announcing the “JobKeeper” $130 billion package, that local government would struggle to get any of the wage subsidies being funded. We knew that the State Government looked like keeping all of their staff on normal pay, even if they had nothing to do, or twenty days special leave if they needed to mind their kids, as part of a process of riding the crisis out. But local government looked like it had fallen between the cracks.

Amongst other things we said:

Something needs to be done and it needs to be done by you two. Why can’t you do things like this:

• whatever is required to make available councils’ financial reserves/”unrestricted assets”,
• provide grants to continue employment to encourage councils to initiate “shovel-ready projects” and provide meaningful work to employees across the state as well as making improvements to local communities and community facilities,
• commit to allowing councils funding continuing work and services to the community with the guarantee that these monies can be recouped with rate levels beyond the pegging limits,
• pursue the Federal Government to extend JobKeeper to local government - which, as businesses, can satisfy the requirements,
• do whatever is required to encourage councils to retain their staff levels and services to the community with the authority that only the Minister for Local Government can provide, and
• find ways to ensure that local government employees can be guaranteed the protections of special leave where a workplace is closed “to be paid as normal and are (sic) placed on paid special leave”.

But while we were busy making suggestions aimed at keeping everyone employed and doing all those good things that councils do, the infamous Local Government Professionals (sic – AKA Local Government Poseurs) were off on a different tack. The Poseurs’ President Stewart Todd, almost at exactly the same moment that we had emailed our letter to the Minister and OLG had emailed out a “PRESIDENT UPDATE” (sic) to his “Fellow General Mangers”(sic) advising that he had flagged their intention to have LGNSW apply to the Industrial Relations Commission to include stand down provisions in the Award and make a variety of other changes making it easier to change people’s hours, reduce their hours or force them onto leave”.

Not quite the same approach that we and the other unions are looking for. LGP had an online meeting of GM’s which apparently had some “generally agreed” positions. And while they mention stimulus packages and other options for local government, it’s the reality that the only immediate idea they have is to stand down staff and reduce their hours of work, that reveals LGP at its most depressing.

You can read what should have been described as a “President’s Update” (and we’re always happy to give Stewart advice on his grammatical and spelling skills) but it’s the final paragraph that is so appallingly hypocritical:

This is not a time for local government stakeholders to be obstinate in their thinking and position - all involved will need to make sacrifices - we are all in this together.

Are we? The sacrifices needed to be made won’t see the GM’s stood down, only those well below them out there being seen in the community providing services.

COVID-19 update

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Published: Wednesday, 01 April 2020 12:49

LGNSW and the three unions, the USU, LGEA and depa, have published two Joint Statements as a guide to the industry - one on 17 March and a Revised version on 20 March.

We expect these Joint Statements will continue and so far we’ve seen councils that have responded quickly and decisively to the need to get those who can be working from home, working from home, as well as councils stumbling around and failing that challenge - Clarence Valley, for example, has done little more than warn their staff not to travel between the two Council offices, and to prevent people opening the windows to get in some fresh air. Always a laggard, Clarence needs to move much, much faster.

One of the USU’s big issues in the current award negotiations is the need to survey and establish levels of casualisation in the industry - especially the misuse of “casual” arrangements of people who really are doing systematic and regular hours and are more appropriately described as permanent part-time. The IRC in proceedings directed all councils to supply this information and one of the councils which has failed to comply with the direction is Sutherland. The sort of occasion when you regret that there are no penal provisions in the Industrial Relations Act.

And it eventuates that at Sutherland last week they planned to advise more than 300 employees they classified as “casuals” that there won’t be any more work offered. Obviously councils need to work out what to do about workplaces like swimming pools, gymnasiums and leisure centres when the Government has closed them down, but the heavy-handed approach taken by GM Manjeet Grewal entirely ignored that many of the 300 staff had been employed for five, ten and even twenty years and were not really casuals, but permanent part-time employees who would be entitled to redundancy payments.

And this is the same GM who thought it appropriate, on receiving a request from us through their HR people to focus their attention on having those who can work from home, working from home, thought it appropriate to approach our local delegate (who was unaware of our email) and walk him up the street and point out the queues outside Centrelink - something the GM asserted she was avoiding but then, only two days later was sprung sacking all her casuals! Lovely. A handful of degrees but none of them remotely involving caring or compassion.

We are interested to hear from members at other laggard councils so we can assist in getting people working from remote locations and away from cramped and higher risk offices. Let us know.

Something to balance all the bad news, we have a new Committee of Management

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Published: Wednesday, 01 April 2020 12:49

All members would have received advice from the NSW Electoral Commission in March calling for nominations and at midday on Tuesday 24 March, we were advised that there were sufficient candidates for the six positions being filled and that those six candidates had been declared elected. The new Committee of Management will operate the two years from 1 May.

As Secretary, I am the seventh member of the committee, and the new committee has as close as we can get to 50:50 gender representation, and representatives from planning, health and building, and environmental health - all the major professions and qualifications covered.

The Committee (with their policy statements submitted with their nominations) will be:

Steven Cook                                                                                                                                                      

President

I am a Senior Town Planner working in development assessment at Wagga Wagga City Council, having commenced with WWCC in the early 2000s I feel a strong connection to regional NSW after spending almost my whole life in Wagga, moving to the city from Dubbo at the age of 7.

I have been a member of the Committee of Management for the past four years and am now seeking election as President of depa, so I can continue to help contribute to the strategic operation of the union and to achieving positive outcomes for the benefit of the whole membership. Having lived with cancer for the past seven years, I also believe that I bring a unique insight to the Committee, as an individual balancing a serious medical condition with full-time work.

As a delegate, as well as chair of my Council’s Consultative Committee, I am a keen advocate on day-to-day industrial matters. However, I also hold a keen interest in depa’s role providing professional advocacy and support for the various professions represented by the union, particularly to government in these times of seemingly consistent reform within the planning system and local government.

Renah Givney                                                                                                                                                       

Vice President

I have worked in local government for almost 17 years in development assessment roles. I am currently a senior development assessment Officer at Coffs Harbour City Council, where I am the depa delegate. I have also represented depa members on Councils Consultative Committee for the last 5 years, part of this time as the Chair.

While working in local government can be extremely rewarding, it can also be a very difficult environment for those who work in development and environment roles. I firmly believe that depa plays an integral role in assisting members to navigate this environment, while helping to steer the industry in the right direction.

The last 4 years I have served on the depa Committee of Management. I am seeking re-election this year in the position of Vice President. Should I be re-elected, I will continue to contribute to the strategic direction of the union and advocate for the interests of members.

Vince Galletto                                                                                                                                              

Committee Member

I have been a member of this association since the early 80s and have been the chair of the Consultative Committee at the City of Ryde Council for almost 20 years.

I have an interest in preserving the rights and benefits of local government employees and in particular the planning, development and environmental health and building professionals which depa represents.

As a member of the Committee of Management for depa it has provided me with the opportunity to participate and represent fellow members in award negotiations as well is looking after their interest in any dispute that may arise with their employer/organisation.

I would feel privileged to be given the opportunity to continue my association and work with depa as a member of the Committee of Management.

Yael Lang                                                                                                                                                         

Committee Member

I am an Environmental Health Officer at Blacktown City Council and have been for almost 14 years. Coming from a strong union-minded community, I joined depa upon my first few days of starting my career at Blacktown. I found the courage to volunteer myself as delegate some 7 years later, which has allowed me some amazing experiences. In this time I have represented members on the Staff Consultative Committee, participated in policy reviews, and have been involved in negotiating Enterprise Agreements, as well as a range of other activities.

I hold a great deal of appreciation and respect for the work of unions and am especially proud of the role depa plays in local government and its commitment to its members.

Being a newbie amongst a team of experienced and professional members, I can only proclaim to give it my very best!

I very much look forward to this new and exciting opportunity of being elected and becoming part of the Management Committee for depa.

Jamie Loader                                                                                                                                                 

Committee Member

I have over twenty years’ experience in Local Government, working on a range of positions including Building Surveying, Planning, and Environmental Health. I have also worked in a range of Councils including small rural Councils (Bland and Junee Shire), Metropolitan (Parramatta City) and large regional Councils (Wyong Shire and now Central Coast).

I believe that my experience in Local Government allows me to better understand the issues faced by depa members and the industry in general. I have also been the depa delegate at Parramatta City and Bland Shire Councils so I have had considerable experience representing members on various workplace reform committees, consultative committees and in the IRC.

I am extremely proud of the role that depa plays within the industrial framework of Local Government and our reputation, whilst hard-earned, speaks for itself. If we’re involved, there’s a fight to be fought.

I’ve been a member of the Committee of Management for eleven years now, nine of those as Vice President. During this time of been involved in setting the strategic direction of the Association, as well as representing the Union in a number of forums.

I look forward to continuing my role on the depa Committee of Management.

Shona Porter                                                                                                                                                         

Committee Member

I have been a member of depa from my beginnings in town planning as a graduate planner at Randwick Council.

I represented depa on the Consultative Committee at Canterbury-Bankstown, including as chair of the CC. For the first 18 months of the merger the Council operated with an interim consultative committee with delegates from Canterbury and Bankstown, after which I was elected by members to be the depa representative.

I actively participate in the consultative committee, ensuring that all information provided to me in those meetings or by email is distributed to members for feedback. I am able to benefit members through my broad knowledge of local government, the issues faced by newly formed organisations, and other issues where members need support.

I think depa provides value for members in providing professional and capable advice and would like to be re-elected on the committee to further increase my knowledge of employment related issues so that I can better represent my fellow colleagues/depa members.

Finally, something about us - it’s election time

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Published: Monday, 17 February 2020 12:55

Elections for the Committee of Management take place every two years, and for the position of Secretary every four years. This year will see the NSW Electoral Commission conduct an election for us for our new Committee of Management, other than the position of Secretary which was elected for a four year term in 2018.

Last year the Committee acknowledged the reasons why a Committee of ten was simply too big for an organisation our size. These days, with electronic communications, everyone is in contact with each other, and our structure needs to respond.

So the Committee resolved at its November meeting to amend our rules to move from a ten person Committee of one President, two Vice Presidents, and six Members (plus the Secretary) to a more compact group of seven, one President, one Vice President and four Members, and the Secretary.

depa and the NSWEC have agreed on this timetable for the election:

3 March               depa provides electoral roll to NSWEC

9 March               NSWEC posts election notices to all financial members and on their website calling for nominations

24 March             Nominations close

If there are sufficient candidates for the vacant positions, they will be declared elected. And if there are more candidates than there are positions, an election will follow.

There are three members the current Committee who have chosen to not re-nominate. President Jo Doheny will retire from local government this year, Vice President Joanne Dunkerley has been hit with the often-impossible logistics of managing a school age daughter and Brendan Hayes, in his new job at Parkes, will focus on that and EDAP.

We note and appreciate Jo Doheny’s contribution over the last decade. A great delegate for us at Gosford initially, a member of the Committee of Management, a Vice President and for the last few years President. Thanks Jo. Joanne was on the Committee for almost that long as well after a long period as our delegate at Great Lakes. Thanks Joanne.

And thanks Brendan.

There is a democratic process to be followed and all financial members are able to nominate. Sometimes it is a struggle for us to fill the nine positions and those most interested in what we do are active delegates or members of the Consultative Committee, and there is a limit to what can be asked of a volunteer.

If anyone is interested in standing for election, give the office a ring and we can talk through what’s involved. Otherwise we have enough current members re-standing not to worry. Relax, nothing to see here.

Sydney City can’t help being nominated for our HR awards

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Published: Monday, 17 February 2020 12:55

What is it with Sydney City? The City, boasting its progressive credentials in employment, has been nominated more than any other Council in our annual Worst HR Local Government awards. This progressive stuff is simply a façade, inclusion is gorgeous, we all support it, but getting a finger out and dealing with an application by your own managers for the introduction of nine day fortnight for their staff, consistent with the provisions in the City Award allowing this process to be considered, shouldn’t be sitting around ignored for almost a year.

We had members involved in the drafting of that submission to which there was no proper response, then members resolving that we do what we could to get some action happening under the terms provided expressly in the Award, which we did, to be confronted with the City’s Impossible GoSlow. A phenomenon where all HR issues can go to die.

And when our dispute is listed in the IRC, the City admits it doesn’t have a “process” to consider such an application, the latest in a series of attempted fob offs which included refusing to respond to our request about which policies or procedures should be addressed in an application - with some HR flunky saying they couldn’t be specified because it could be all of them.

In the IRC on 28 January, Commissioner Sloan was able to squeeze from the City’s lawyer an undertaking that they would identify the policies and procedures that needed to be addressed by the end of the following week. And just like the City, we received their advice at 4:50pm on Friday afternoon! That really is taking literally the concept of the end of the week.

But the letter contained no surprises, they identified the Code of Conduct, Leave Guidelines, their Work Health and Safety Policy and their Overtime Guidelines. These were not just four basic obvious policies that had been considered by those managers who drafted the proposal in March 2019, they were damning evidence that the City’s response to us was nothing more than BS. Our first 2020 nomination, will it be seven years of nominations for the City?

Six nominations for the Golden Turd since 2014, every year in fact, so there must be some common factor, something bogging stuff down to an Impossible GoSlow, and frustrating everyone since 2013...

Wake up, we’ve found a flaw in Building and Development Certifiers Act 2018 No 63

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Published: Monday, 17 February 2020 12:55

We have an email from the BPB that says this:

It appears you have identified an unintended problem with the current provisions of the Building and Development Certifiers Act 2018.

This was a response to concerns initially raised by an Ordinance 4 building surveyor in the west of the state. Not a member of ours (although he had been) but it was brought to our attention by the President of EDAP, Brendan Hayes, a member of our Committee of Management. And while we generally don’t like the idea of doing things for people who aren’t members of ours, it appeared they had a point. Still, the optimistic way of looking at someone who is not a member, is that they are a potential member.

The provisions under the heading Saving of existing certificates of accreditation don’t properly provide for the continuation and renewal of existing certificates of accreditation for certain accredited certifiers - specifically those certified based upon the old Ordinance 4 qualifications and their experience. This would have prevented the renewal of accreditation for many of the older and experienced building surveyors and would have decimated smaller councils on the west of the Great Dividing Range.

Well done to that non-member, because he picked up things that no other building surveyors or certifiers had picked up, nor us, nor the BPB, nor any of the policy people who had drafted the legislation, nor even it would seem, the Parliamentary Draughtsman (sic).

It will now be addressed in the new Building and Development Certifiers Regulation.

Significantly, it wasn’t raised to the AIBS, nor the AAC - the two organisations that most boast about looking after the interests of building surveyors - nor to anyone else. It was raised by us. Member or not, everyone knows we are the organisation looking after the interests of building surveyors.

“It will take two years to fix …”

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Published: Monday, 17 February 2020 12:55

NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler (above) admitted to the Sydney Morning Herald in an article published on 8 February that “a major fix to the state’s residential construction crisis is two years away, as fresh cracks emerged in Sydney’s troubled Mascot Towers apartment block”.

The Commissioner said, “he had been a ‘bit despondent’ after visiting some ‘pretty awful’ construction sites in recent weeks.

There are some really regrettable things out there that abhor me.”

And us too, Mr Building Commissioner. Nothing but a massive increase in your resources and funding and a commitment by the Government to make dodgy builders and developers responsible for their shoddy work and liable for damages will do. The owners and residents of Mascot Towers, Opal Tower and the other uninhabitable developments have been more than “a bit despondent” for a long time now.

But even the two years target identified by the Building Commissioner depends upon the Berejiklian government getting their building reform package through the NSW Upper House. It’s on pause while the Upper House presses the recommendations of the Shoebridge Committee as an alternative and more dynamic proposal. We prefer Shoebridge’s recommendations, too.

While we were all suffocating in the smoke or worse through January, the Minister for Better Regulation (sic), Kevin Anderson, announced on 21 January that he would “introduce a risk rating system for builders, certifiers and developers that would score them on the quality of their previous projects to weed out the dodgy operators”.

When it comes to certifiers, that has been the role of the Building Professionals Board, or whatever it’s called, or wherever it sits in government these days. Clearly the Minister has a lack of confidence in that organisation to have done what is now being required to be done with some kind of a rating system.

If you want to see a pretty good rating system, check out the penalties page on the BPB site. We’d be happy to help - the dodgy bastards with multiple penalties on the BPB site should never, ever work again in the industry, and should never, ever be able to run businesses employing others doing certification, or anything else to do with construction.

And while we’re at it, ratings, really? Let’s not forget that the Global Financial Crisis was all about dodgy investment strategies that had all been rated AAA by both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, respected and authoritative ratings businesses that really didn’t know what they were rating...

And speaking of people not paying attention...

How are the award negotiations going?

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Published: Monday, 17 February 2020 12:55

There have been three major issues occupying negotiations.

The first is having the IRC require Councils to report on how they are complying with their Award obligations to have a training plan in place to manage the training and assist progression of their staff. Probably poorly, but we will see. The IRC has directed that information be provided and it is flowing in. It’s required by the Award, so it’s a legally enforceable entitlement. It’s the L-A-W!

The second, is having the IRC require Councils to furnish information about the extent to which their workforce is casualised (not just by the number and extent of allegedly casual employees - more often than not really temporary appointments, or part-time permanent appointments without the benefits of permanency - but labour hire and inappropriate term contracts as well) to ensure that local government remains a place for permanent employment. Again, it’s the L-A-W.

And the third has been to focus on the commitment of the three unions, and LGNSW from their Conference late last year, to recognise the need for proper protection and leave for the victims of domestic violence and introduce Family and Domestic Violence Leave through a new clause 21M. And the good news is that on 24 February, accompanied by the furious agreement and consent of the parties, the IRC will vary the 2017 Award with immediate effect to provide a protective clause.