After a round of membership meetings and several meetings with management Sydney Water’s O&M proposal has largely begun being implemented.

Notwithstanding the consultation process the original proposal remains largely unchanged except in the following important areas:

1. All Position Descriptions contain the new additional duty of: ‘Additional duties as required during periods of absence of other staff’.

Your union representatives raised the concern that this new duty is virtually immeasurable and may lead to members being required to work two jobs for an indefinite period. It could allow management to avoid paying members the increased amount normally payable when they act in job at a higher level. Management agreed to take out the new duty from all PDs.

2. A concern about Scientific Officer (and others) position titles being changed to a ‘Technical Officer’.

The idea being that our members were concerned that Technical Officer was too generic and did not reflect the high levels of specialisation that exists within the proposed 30 positions.

This issue was raised and a compromise position title was reached: ‘Technical Specialist’ was agreed between the parties.

3. A concern that the newly created pool of ‘Technical Officers’ would mean that our members could be unilaterally transferred to any position in the pool of 30.

The concern largely centres on the fact that the new PDs are generic and would allow management to simply move members away from their appointed specialisation against their will.

Management have stated, in writing, that no member in the pool of 30 will be moved away from their presently appointed duties in anyway unless that member chooses to.

4. A lack of actual PDs for many of the modified positions.

Management created and published all new and modified PDs.

5. A concern that the changes will impact on the operation of the ‘Special Movements’ clause in the Award.

There is only one O&M member currently affected by the Special Movement clause. They were nearing the top of the Special Movements scale before the proposal. Post the proposal they have been direct appointed to the IPS rate that brings them to the equivalent point to the top of the Special Movements scale.

All new appointments in O&M that would normally be covered by Special Movements will continue to be progress through that scale as before.

6. ASO/BSO positions being inconsistently as ‘Administrators’.

There are a range of jobs with different titles that all have administration functions, for example: ASO/BSO. Under the reorg, many of the position titles are being brought under a common title of ‘Administrator’. However this has not been consistently applied.

Management have responded to our questions regarding consistency in this area by saying that they didn’t attempt to ‘fix everything with this change’. They said that there aren’t any substantive changes here and that any inconsistencies will be addressed as the structure is bedded down.

Where to next?

There will be continued concerns as a change of this magnitude is implemented. As such management have agreed to continue talking with us wherever necessary. If you have any outstanding issues or have discovered a new one, contact your local delegate or email Stuart Hatter on: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .