Not so fast, the dilettantes and dabblers are still at it

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Published: Tuesday, 21 June 2016 14:23

Just when you thought you were was safe from Dorothy, the cowardly Lion, the heartless Tin Man and the brainless Scarecrow, LGPA has provided some misleading advice to the industry in marketing their LG Forum on Council Mergers on 30 June. This lot had abandoned giving advice to senior staff on employment issues in amalgamations with advice from President Barry Smyth that if senior staff are members of the three unions, that’s where the advice should come from, because LGPA is not an industrial organisation.

But the marketing of the Forum includes a workshop called “Bringing Two Salary Systems Together” run by some bloke called Bob Davidson, claimed to be an “EBA Specialist”. No one I’ve spoken to has any idea who this bloke is, and if you go Google or go to LinkedIn, he can either be a finance professional, an itinerant labourer or potentially a consultant at Davidson Workplace Solutions. And if you Google Davidson Workplace Solutions you find someone called Rob Davidson, who, from his brief profile is apparently a man.

So, why would LGPA think it made sense to wheel in a bloke, and we mean a bloke, and describe him as an “EBA Specialist”, when an EBA is something that happens under the Fair Work Act and has nothing to do with local government in New South Wales? Is it because I have no idea what they’re talking about?

The most important thing about deciding what to do about salary Systems in each Council, is to involve the unions.

So, the unions collectively wrote to the councils (although the Interim GM of the Council on the link is too smart to fall for this LGPA stunt) who received this marketing guff and pointing out, amongst other things, that “if the Council wants that advice, it should get it from LGNSW.” Not some anonymous person, who could be either Bob or Rob, or both, with an expertise in the Federal System, which is not even mentioned on the website of Davidson Workplace Solutions.