How are the prestigious depa HR awards looking for 2021?

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Published: Wednesday, 28 July 2021 10:48

Last year’s winner, Sutherland Shire, has gone hard looking for back-to-back awards.

• First it was a member where HR had inappropriately denied him a car allowance when he started, and as a result of our pursuit, agreed to retrospectively pay him for two and a half years of car allowance under the Award, and continue to pay the allowance while ever he worked there;

• then we sprung them breaching their historic Core Enterprise Agreement which has strict requirements about how an employee acting in a higher graded position should be paid, by seriously thinking that a new HR protocol could provide something less, when we all know HR protocols can’t override a legally enforceable entitlement under an Award or an Enterprise Agreement - still being resolved;

• then breaching the obligation in the Splinter Award to pay employees going for a vaccination “to leave, without loss of pay for the time reasonably required to receive ... a vaccination” . They did this by removing current market allowances, meaning there was a loss of pay, and at the same time imposing their own four hour limit - still being resolved.

And don’t even ask how the potty-mouth ex-Mayor is going with building and health standards in his three cafes. No, he hasn’t abused anyone lately, but that’s been hard because as a result of his troubles on the last occasion, a Memorandum of Understanding was developed between Sutherland and Georges River to have the other council’s EHOs conduct inspections for any premises owned or operated by a Councillor - happily resolving any conflict of interest and possible undesirable pressure, and the problem we have seen over the last few years with two of our members being abused by Councillor Pesce.

Those three cafes must comply by now, mustn’t they?

An impressive start but there is one Council in the wings, and while management has changed, others have embraced the concept of hangin’ em high as if they’ve inherited it from those who went before. There’s a place with a real cultural problem.