Hunter Water Corporation EBA Campaign

Hunter Water Offer - Just not good enough

Details

Published on Tuesday, 13 October, 2009

Job Security and Redundancy Pay At Risk

Hunter Water’s current offer leaves your current redundancy entitlements completely unprotected! Policy can be changed at any time with the stroke of a pen. Unless your redundancy pay and job security provisions are in your Agreement, they can be taken away at any time over the next three years.

The current 56 weeks maximum redundancy pay can be taken away leaving you with a minimum payment of between 4 and 18 weeks. If there is a change of Government in NSW, this will make it cheaper and easier to reduce staff numbers, outsource jobs or privatise. Our job security is far too important to leave unprotected for all of us and for future workers.

The Pay Offer – Just Not Good Enough

Hunter Water management has offered 3%, 4% and 3.5%. The cost of living is rising. Hunter Water has seen fit to pay their contractors 4% a year but will not do so with their own workers! Management is dangling the possibility of up to 0.5% extra in the final year if GPS is implemented and if there is enough money saved to fund it. Management have wanted to put higher and higher hurdles to achieving this 0.5% and want to finalise these hurdles only once the Agreement is signed! It is just not fair that workers should bear these risks for their pay increase. This is just not good enough. If Hunter Water want GPS to increase productivity, then they should just compensate their workforce for this – no strings attached.

Changing Offers - What can they get away with?

Over the last three months we have seen Hunter Water management change the offer for our Agreement many times. 4% in the first year was offered and then withdrawn. The criteria for getting 4% in the last year kept changing, making it harder and harder. They even proposed that we should add up savings from GPS and then deduct the cost of purchasing, installing and developing it! It appears management are testing just how much they can get away with. They are trying to wear workers down to push the Agreement through. This is pretty outrageous given negotiations were stalled for weeks whilst nearly everyone in senior management went on holiday.

What Next

Under the new IR laws, we need to have a postal vote of all Union members before protected, legal industrial action can happen. The ASU has requested this ballot. All members need to vote to open up the option of taking action to show Hunter Water management we can’t be taken for granted.

Beware Management’s Tricks

Hunter Water management may decide to back themselves and put the Agreement out for a vote. If 50% vote in favour, then you are stuck with the Agreement for the next three years. When they are desperate, some employers threaten to take away backpay if you vote against the Agreement. The ASU will not accept any Agreement that does not include backpay – especially given management dragged the negotiations out and scheduled holidays for themselves.