The State Government's 2.5% wage restriction policy for all public sector employees is not enough to keep pace with CPI and rising inflation. It is a virtual pay cut across the public sector and does not enable fair and decent wages and conditions that workers are entitled to.

All ASU members in the Water industry face considerable challenges in locking in decent pay-rises and protecting their working conditions in the next round of Enterprise Agreements.

NSW Maritime workers created history by being the first group of workers to break Michael Costa's 2.5% pay rise limit. It was only through a tough 18 month campaign which involved rolling industrial action that they were able to do this.

CHANGE OR MYTH?

Management at Hunter Water are proposing a so-called culture change among staff by restructuring the corporation, yet the situation seems to be seriously spiralling into chaos as staff feel over worked and stressed to the max.

The redundancy and redeployment changes at Sydney Water are ongoing and are starting to diminish the morale of the workers.

As you would recall, Sydney Water CEO Kerry Schott is firmly committed to changing what she describes as a 'redundancy culture' in Sydney Water and believes the best way to achieve this is to reduce the redundancy entitlement for new starters and to place financial penalties on employees after 6 months in the redeployment pool.

WaterNews spoke to two delegates who have worked for Sydney Water for many years to find out what they felt about the changes

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS AT WORK

Everyone knows that it is important to understand your conditions of employment so that you understand your entitlements and obligations. Most people know about Awards and Enterprise Agreements. These are collective agreements that set minimum pay and conditions for all workers in a workplace or industry. They are the critical safety net underpinning the rights of Australian employees that the Howard Government's WorkChoices legislation threatened to abolish.

Last year the ASU held meetings in all workplaces across Sydney Water where members overwhelmingly voted to reject Sydney Water’s proposal to:

• Create different employment conditions for new starters who will have their redundancy entitlement capped at 52 weeks.
• Cut redeployees redundancy entitlement by 25% after they have been in the redeployment pool for 3 months and then continue to reduce the redundancy entitlement for every additional week in the redeployment pool.