LGNSW stand-off with the Unions on senior staff transitional arrangements
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- Published: Thursday, 16 November 2023 13:32
As a quick reminder, In October 2021 LGNSW resolved to no longer support “no reason” terminations and contracts and form a consensus with the three unions to press the Government to move the second layer of management back under the Award and provide access to unfair dismissals. The worst of the reactionaries rose up like barbarians at the gate but at a Special Conference of LGNSW on March 2022, their entreaties were rejected and the position reaffirmed.
Then, dawdle, dawdle, dawdle, as the Office of Local Government and/or a Minister or two treated this as a lower priority than we would have liked, there was a change of government this year and it’s now accepted that the legislative changes necessary to end the concept of “senior staff” for everyone but the GM, will happen early next year.
Section 340 of the Local Government Act 1993 needs to be deleted and this was the only recommendation specific to local government in the recent Boland/Booth Review of the Industrial Relations Act and the IRC. It will be accompanied by an amendment to the IR Act to lift the maximum remuneration level preventing access to the unfair dismissals jurisdiction. That’s all agreed between us.
The only remaining issue outstanding is the transitional arrangements for senior staff once the Act is changed.
Two ICAC Investigations, Mid-Western and then the former Canterbury noted it was unacceptable to continue “no reason” termination contracts because they were a corruption risk with councillors threatening GM’s (more often than you might think) that they needed to sack the Director of Planning (in particular) or the Council would sack them. And made recommendations to that effect.
We know the contracts are fundamentally unfair anyway, because there is no recourse for good and capable employees who are sacked for “no reason”. This regularly happens after local government elections when the politics of a Council can change, and good GM’s and people get sacked.
We met last with LGNSW on 26 September and were unable to bridge the gap between their position on the legality of the contracts, and the unions’ position that the contracts are shown to be unfair and a corruption risk, and the sooner we get rid of them the better. At the moment, having the ethical and moral higher ground isn’t sufficiently persuasive.
Given our historic capacity to reach agreement with the employers over the decades on many, many other difficult issues this shouldn’t be impossible, but an argument based solely on the law, ignores the herd of elephants in the room.
They say that the contracts were voluntarily and lawfully entered into (it’s a standard contract, there is no option) and should continue in operation until their termination. We think that argument is legally flawed anyway because if you wanted the job, the standard contract was the gun at your head, hardly freely entered into.
In an industry where the historic consensus needs to be consistent, it’s impossible to argue that contracts we have all agreed are unacceptable should continue any longer than is necessary.
How can the contracts be unacceptable, so we are removing them, but simultaneously acceptable enough legally that we continue the current ones?
We’ll meet again, we have time on our side with the legislative changes looking like early next year, but the LGNSW view is like Bunnings continuing to sell Round up, when everyone knows it’s a killer. The argument that it is lawful - like slavery once was - doesn’t cut it.