depa elections next year

Early in 2018 will see the two-year election cycle for the positions of President, two Vice Presidents, and six members of the Committee of Management.  This will also coincide with the four-year cycle for the position of Secretary.

Financial members can expect to receive notice from the State Electoral Office in February or March.

There is currently a vacancy on the Committee of Management and while all the other members of the Committee will be re-contesting their positions, we are looking for one more member interested in bringing their experience, usually as our delegate or representative on the Consultative Committee, onto the Committee of Management.  But the election allows anyone to stand, experienced or otherwise. It’s the joy of the democratic process, after all.

Ordinarily we find candidates are people who have already been active in depa and want to become more active.

Think about it over the break.  If you’d like to know more about it, give me a ring.

Code of Conduct

Hope you got your submissions in.  We did and here it is if you are interested.

As a reminder, because this is the wrong time of the year to find yourself in trouble, beware of the current 6.7(i) because there are over-excited people out there arguing that the prohibition of “staff meeting with applicants or objectors alone AND outside office hours to discuss applications or proposals” doesn’t only apply to dealing with formal application or objections as part of your job.  It means you can’t give advice to your mum, or your mate, at home and in your own time.

LGNSW CEO Donna Rygate proudly launches their game changer

Well, we don’t like it, LGEA doesn’t like it, the USU has said that they won’t accept anything which is a breach of the Award and will dispute breaches at each Council, but LGNSW will roll out their Capability Framework in 2018 regardless. They say it suits their purposes and we all say it’s a big steaming pile of it.

When our dispute was first listed before Chief Commissioner Kite in the IRC on 10 October 2017 LGNSW agreed in the course of conciliation to publishing something on their website discouraging councils from proceeding to implement the framework until they had prepared guides and issuing cautionary advice that the framework does not alter Award obligations to evaluate positions according to the Award or do a variety of other things required by the salary system.
 
Well, in their usual weasel words way, they said “not recommended” rather than “discouraged”, but that’s about as good as it gets with zealots like that, lining up for their Kool-Aid*.
 
Since then, LGNSW has produced four Guides, to which we provided a comprehensive response in a long, long letter dated 11 December identifying those parts of the Award in addition to the cautionary notes about clause 7 Salary Systems and critiquing the four individual Guides.  LGNSW adopted a number of our suggestions but, as far as we were concerned, not enough.  However, they were prepared to acknowledge that they had understated the award clauses to which this framework thing would relate, and may potentially affect, and it’s now agreed that the following clauses will be incorporated:

Clause 2 Statement of Intent
Clause 5 Skill Descriptors
Clause 7 Salary System
Clause 8 Use of Skills
Clause 9 Performance evaluation and reward
Clause 31 Training and Development
Clause 39 Workplace Change, and
clause 40 Termination of Employment and Redeployment due to Redundancy.
 
It remains a deeply flawed document without the precautions to protect employees from zealous HR or management acolytes.  Example, it’s all well and good to caution these guileless innocents that there are two particular things that they are obliged to do under clause 7 Salary Systems but that clause obliges councils to do 12 things.  What happens to the other ten?

Returning to the Commission on 15 December, LGNSW acknowledged that they had no proposed launch date, they hadn’t yet arranged training and information sessions but they would be going hard with it in 2018. In its current form it suits their purposes.

Whether or not councils will adopt this framework remains to be seen. LGNSW has coyly developed a step-by-step process that at no stage requires anyone to understand what it is, or what it isn’t, or where the benefits are, or how astonishingly staff-intensive and ludicrously expensive it will be to roll out a process which, in many ways, is simply saying what the industry does now, but in a different language. This will cost those councils duped by the zealots calling them to join them in the line waiting for their Kool-Aid*, a fortune.

LGNSW is trying to suck up to the NSW Government by adopting a strategy introduced in the State public sector after 50 years of inaction.  This compares unfavourably to what we have done in local government - the dramatic reform initiatives developed over decades of cooperation with the local government unions and now enshrined for the last quarter of a century in the Local Government State Award.
 
And while it might have been boasted as a game changer by the current CEO, whether or not the newly elected LGNSW Board thinks this profligate waste of local government’s precious resources and money is worthwhile, remains to be seen.
 
We will be supplying information to our representatives on consultative committees to allow them to fully understand our concerns about the Award and its obligations on councils and where those obligations are at risk.  But make no mistake, this is a very costly exercise where the best LGNSW can say is that there are “possible” benefits.
 
*"Drinking the Kool-Aid" is an idiom commonly used in the United States that refers to any person or group who goes along with a doomed or dangerous idea because of peer pressure. The phrase often carries a negative connotation when applied to an individual or group. It can also be used ironically or humorously to refer to accepting an idea or changing a preference due to popularity, peer pressure, or persuasion. In recent years it has evolved further to mean extreme dedication to a cause or purpose, so extreme that one would "Drink the Kool-Aid" and die for the cause.

LGS agrees it’s their responsibility, and they will fix it

Last month we reported on our industrial dispute filed with Local Government NSW representing councils over the apparent underpayment of superannuation by a significant number of councils. This affected some of the 4500 employees remaining in the two closed defined benefit schemes managed by LGS - the Retirement Scheme and the Defined Benefits Scheme.

We’d had two unsatisfying meetings with LGS and LGNSW before the dispute came on in the Commission. For both LGS and LGNSW, this was all about someone else’s responsibility. LGS claimed it was the councils or the individual employees and LGNSW claimed it was LGS or the employees.

With a new CEO as a replacement for the irreplaceable and much-loved Peter Lambert, David Smith found himself between a rock and a hard place. The advice he was getting was coming from those sections of the organisation where we could reasonably expect would have been ensuring compliance with the rules over the years. Uh oh …

A direction from Chief Commissioner Kite to depa as the notifier to invite the “proper officer” of LGS to attend and assist the Commission on the next occasion led to a couple of lawyers and the LGS CEO with a couple of others attending the Commission on 3 November. But it wasn’t the bad experience that it could have been.

On 1 November the LGS Board had met and in an email to the parties the CEO advised it had resolved to direct the CEO to do two things:

  • “to undertake an investigation into the allegations of non-compliance” as detailed in the (depa dispute) before the IRC “and providing the investigation substantiates non-compliance, as the LGS CEO to determine whether any LGS members in either the Retirement Fund all the Defined Benefit scheme had been adversely impacted.
  • To seek appropriate external advice to establish a reasonable approach to determine and quantify the extent of any financial impact on LGS members for me to develop an appropriate remediation plan for Board approval to be applied to correct any non-compliance and make recommendations to the LGS Trustee Board including any suggested amendments to the Trust Deed or LGS policies and procedures, with a view to ensuring all employers are calculating superable salary correctly.”

Clearly the Three Wise Monkeys strategy presented to LGNSW and the unions in the previous meetings had been abandoned. And a good thing too.

CEO David Smith had also written to the Chief Commissioner accepting this responsibility and committing to both investigating and resolving any adverse effect on members of the fund. Here is his letter.

On that basis the Chief Commissioner was happy to adjourn our dispute until 30 January for a report back. LGS is putting on an additional resource to properly review and examine compliance with 1.2 and 1.3 and the Fund will also report to depa, the other unions in support and LGNSW about progress prior to Xmas.

Yesterday the LGS wrote to all councils as the next step in this process and you can see that letter here.

We’ve smashed through the wall and the Board has the staff doing what they should have been doing all along. Well done to the Board and the new CEO David Smith.

(And I’d like to thank those 150 or so members who responded and provided an individual authority for depa to act to obtain information that may be said by either the Fund or their Council to be confidential, to the extent necessary to resolve this dispute. We probably won’t need them now, but better to be sure than sorry.)

We still don’t know what this thing is

When our industrial dispute about LGNSW’s purported Local Government Capability Framework (sic) was listed before Chief Commissioner Kite on 10 October, the Chief Commissioner required the parties to do two things.

The first (done within 24 hours or so and with a firm suggestion that LGNSW consult with the unions to find, as far as possible, an agreed form of words) was for LGNSW to put some information on their website as soon as possible warning the zealots off using the Capability Framework (sic) until the relevant development tools and guides had been prepared.

Second, that there be a focus on developing tools and guides for the appropriate use of the document for those who choose to use it. This was a process anticipating the involvement of the unions so that we do understand what it is and what isn’t so that when it is out there infecting the industry, we have some idea of what it’s for and what it shouldn’t be for.

We meet again next week and while we return to the IRC on 30 November LGNSW has still not provided any draft of tools and guidelines to discuss when we do meet.

Had a look at the Draft Code of Conduct yet?

The Office of Local Government has prepared a Draft of a proposed new Model Code of Conduct. Remembering that it will become mandatory, so it’s worth a look. Here is a link.

There are significant additions in areas of harassment, discrimination and bullying and proposed 3.9 provides a definition of “bullying behaviour” as “any behaviour in which a person or a group of people repeatedly behaves unreasonably towards another Council official or a group of Council officials and the behaviour creates a risk to health and safety.”

Ooooooo, there is one Council in particular for whom that will be a significant risk. We’ve been dealing with an oppressive and bullying culture now for almost 9 months. Bit by bit the Council throws significant money at treating the unacceptable personal behaviour but also requires employees working under that person to be part of the treatment. Employees have been provided with training and workshops to learn communication skills and assertiveness sufficient to remind the bloke when he is distressing them or employees are in tears in front of him, it’s not appropriate. We can think of a better strategy.

We will be putting in a submission to OLG on the Draft Model Code before the closure date. Obviously we are interested in things like the protection in 5.5 that “the political views of a Councillor do not constitute a private interest for the purposes of clause 5.2” but for staff, the current provision at 7.4 (e) requires staff to “ensure that any participation in political activities outside the service of the Council does not conflict with the performance of their official duties” is intended to continue.

A better protection for the councillors by the look of it, and more restrictions on staff.

And look out for this...

Members need to be aware of the current provision in the Code of Conduct known as the Wollongong provision when it was introduced. It’s found at the section titled “Inappropriate interactions” and prevents at 7.5(i)“Council staff meeting with applicants or objectors alone AND outside office hours to discuss applications or proposals.”

This was entirely appropriate when it went into the Model Code because the ICAC had revealed Council staff working away from the office and outside hours. Everyone assumed it prevented Council staff not meeting with developers outside hours and off the premises.

But we are aware of at least one Council which has taken the view that this, in its broadest interpretation, prevents employees of the Council when they are not working (that is, out of hours or on weekends) giving advice or assistance to friends and family in any dealing with the Council.

And when we checked this interpretation with the Office of Local Government, they agreed that in a broad sense that kind of activity could be affected. WTF?

Beware of this risk. Everyone needs to check whether their Council reads this provision as broadly as this before you help your Mum get an application together.

We will deal with the unreasonably broad interpretation of this provision in our submission.

Is that the time?

Almost December, can that be right? As extraordinary as it might sound, 2017 has seen what can only be described as an outbreak of pretty good behaviour by HR. Maybe the mergers preoccupied people with developing PDs, recognising protections of staff while consolidating practices as best they can, or something’s gone in the drinking water, or my presentation as part of a panel at the LGNSW HR conference the end of 2016 was so beguiling, instructive and compelling that those HR people present were transformed and started to look after the interests and welfare of employees, instead of just seeing them as targets, or possible cost savings.

But something has happened - to the extent that sometimes we wonder what we’ll do in December when we need to announce our prestigious, authoritative and highly-anticipated Worst HR In Local Government Award - more popularly known as the Golden Turd.

Like getting blood from a stone...

The merger of the former Kogarah with the former Hurstville to create Georges River has highlighted an issue potentially affecting hundreds of employees in the industry.

We emailed all members on 17 October to bring everyone into the loop on this but it is an issue which affects only those members of the LGS Retirement Scheme or the Defined Benefits Scheme.  Both those schemes have a concept of “superable salary” and rules requiring councils in calculating the superable salary of a member of those funds, to include the “value on the private-use of an employer-provided vehicle”.

Kogarah did but Hurstville didn’t.

It does seem improbable, doesn’t it, that a union official who scored 23 for Maths in the Higher School Certificate (out of 130, no less) should find, investigate and pursue a solution to something that no one else seems to have noticed, and if they did, they did nothing about.  More about LGSS later.

Councils which haven’t included a value on the private use of a Council car have failed to comply with the rules of the Fund, have underpaid superannuation contributions as a consequence since 2003 and have therefore underpaid retirement and exit benefits as well.

As an example, we have a member at Georges River from the former Kogarah, for whom the removal of that value for the final 2.5 years of his employment (something Georges River is not proposing) would cost him more than $40,000 when he retires at the end of 2020. For those employees in those schemes who have had a council car, this is worth investigating.

depa filed a dispute with LGNSW* on 28 September and before the dispute came before Chief Commissioner Kite SC on 18 October there had already been two meetings of the unions with Local Government Super and LGNSW.  Our expectation (probably more correctly expressed as our hope) was that this matter, although complex and potentially requiring complicated calculations about retrospective entitlement, could be resolved quite simply.

(Please note that if you are going to read the dispute notification, the reference to this issue also applying to those employees not in the old closed schemes, who receive the Superannuation Guarantee, is incorrect.  This information came from what was said by LGS in their Employers’ Guide to be information from the ATO website.  It was not.  The first of our LGS disappointments...)

All we needed was the Superannuation Fund and the employers’ organisation to agree that there was a problem which needed to be investigated and, once it was investigated, we would know how big the problem was and all be equally committed to finding a solution.

At our first meeting, LGS took the view that it was a matter between the employer and employees, and LGNSW expressed the view that it was a matter between LGS and employees, it was clear it wasn’t going to be that simple.  LGNSW had already sent advice about the dispute to HR Managers and GMs and LGS needed to do similarly.  It was clear that things got worse the longer the meeting went and it made sense for us to all go away and think about things and we agreed to meet again in a week.

But it got worse at the second meeting when LGS told us that while there were 4500 active members of those funds left in the industry, they wouldn’t tell us what councils they worked at.  It was confidential, apparently, making it a very difficult issue to resolve.

It’s also nonsense, isn’t it - the idea that the Fund responsible for providing a superannuation benefit to employees based upon its own rules, would not provide the simple numbers so we knew where to look.  LGS is the only organisation that knows where the 4500 members of those two funds are employed.  That sort of thing makes people suspicious about their motivation.  You would have thought they would have a handle on whether councils were complying with the Fund’s own rules...

When the dispute did proceed in the Industrial Relations Commission on 18 October, the Chief Commissioner thought it appropriate under section 132(1) of the Industrial Relations Act to direct depa, as the notifier of the dispute, to “invite” the “proper person” from LGS to attend on the next occasion.  This section of the Act allows members of the Commission to “require the attendance of any person whose presence the Commission considers would help in the resolution of the dispute.”

So depa invited LGS to provide the proper person, or persons, and to that invitation was attached an extract of the transcript of the proceedings in which the Chief Commissioner made it clear that if the invitation was declined, then a summons would be prepared to have a “proper person” attend anyway.

Withholding information that should be readily available is one thing, but being summonsed and dragged in chains to the IRC and made to “help in the resolution of the dispute” is another. 

We return to the Commission, with the new CEO of LGS and the Head of Governance attending without the need for a summons, on 3 November.  We can’t wait to hear what they have to say.

And members respond brilliantly

The point of the email sent on 17 October was to prepare ourselves in anticipation that the Superannuation Fund or councils could argue that salary or superannuation information is confidential to employees and we don’t get access to it without the employee authorising us to have access.

At the time of this depaNews going out, 97 members have responded and while a few of them are people who left those schemes sometime between 2003 and now (and we will get to after resolving the principles for the active members) that gives us more than 90 members prepared for depa to be authorised to have access to information that might be claimed by a Council or LGS as being private or confidential to the extent necessary to resolve the dispute. 

And it also makes it clear that of the 41 councils represented by the responses from those 97 members, only the former Kogarah, Sutherland and Parkes have included a value for private use.  A few of the responses are from members who thought their council had, but we really do need some evidence to show that they did.

We have not yet begun to fight.

More Articles ...

  1. What is this thing called, love*?
  2. Andrew Spooner resigns as President
  3. BPB nails idiots at Griffith City Council
  4. depa's responsibility to look after our members’ social interests without discrimination
  5. Get your own ideas!
  6. Look out, the ******** and ********* might be back...
  7. Are you okay?
  8. “Like a dog returning to its vomit…”
  9. Enough is enough – it’s time to cut councillors out of development assessment
  10. I’ve got a Deed of Release - lessons to be learned from Amber Harrison
  11. We accept LGNSW offer for a new State Award
  12. Uh oh, …
  13. Do yourself a favour
  14. Nine days to go …
  15. We don’t like being gagged and we pull the pin on the EMRG
  16. Courts nail clumsy and secretive handling of Council mergers
  17. LGS restores uranium nuclear screening
  18. The Hills Shire embraces commitment to health and wellbeing in 2017 Enterprise Agreement
  19. A Tale of Two Cities
  20. Cripes, where was the compassion?
  21. Ex-Mayor of Hurstville exits with his tail between his legs
  22. OLG forced to state the bleeding obvious on employment protection
  23. LGNSW backflips on decades of cooperation
  24. It’s hard not to feel sorry for Gladys
  25. What would Mike Baird have done?
  26. Uh oh ...
  27. Next month ...
  28. The sharks are circling
  29. Who has the worst HR in local government in 2016?
  30. And that’s pretty much the end of the year for us...
  31. The Ascension marks the death of the historic IRC
  32. We give OLG’s Employment Reference Group another chance
  33. Are things going any better at Sydney City with their asbestos contamination?
  34. Who has the worst HR in local government this year?
  35. Sydney mishandles asbestos contamination in Town Hall House
  36. Ignore Henny Penny, there has been progress in State Award negotiations
  37. depa’s prestigious HR Awards will be announced next month
  38. BPB gets their fingers out on what should happen with PINs
  39. A facade, is always just a facade...
  40. Government dismantles Industrial Relations Commission
  41. We stop Government’s secret processes in merged councils
  42. Who would have thought! Private certifiers need better regulation …
  43. Tamworth GM drops off on removing the nine day fortnight from existing staff
  44. Something to put a smile on your faces - we may have found local government’s dumbest
  45. Council amalgamations provide “a good night out” for old folks
  46. “Come on Barry, give me a cuddle”
  47. Now we can all be miners, NSW Government announces
  48. Sick of politicians? We are …
  49. Get ready, we’re about to start negotiating the 2017 State Award
  50. Government picks up the pace on dismantling IRC
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