Mission Australia negotiations – member briefing

Our Progress from May negotiations

We discussed a whole range of outstanding issues, and have updates for members on the following:

• Personal leave – MA has agreed to an ASU proposal to increase personal/carer’s leave from 10 days to 12 days a year. MA have committed to one of those days to be used as a Mental Health Day. Your union is advocating that employee’s should have the option to use up to 2 Mental Health days. Management is considering our view.
• Family Violence Leave – MA have agreed to secure ASU’s Family Violence Leave clause in your agreement. However,MA has committed to only 3 days, we have asked for a minimum of 5. Management is considering our view.
• Parental Leave – MA have agreed to improving your currently outdated paid parental leave scheme by allowing staff to progress up the pay points whilst on parental leave. Your union’s proposal for 18 weeks after 12months has been rejected; we have now asked them for at least 12 weeks after 12months service. Management is considering our view.
• Hour bank – all employees will be able to access their up to date accrued hours on Hour Bank. MA has agreed to offer a choice of overtime or hour bank, with management approval. MA want to pay you when working those overtime hours at single time - we say overtime rates apply. Management is considering our view.
• Remote Location Allowance - Your union is trying to broaden the definition of remote location to include more areas in regional NSW. Management and ASU are considering which definition is appropriate.
• Professional development - Your union is seeking to recognise the importance of furthering employee’s skills through training and external clinical supervision in your agreement. Management is considering our view.

Pay

A Pay Offer from Mission Australia is finally on the table. To be clear, the pay offer works as follows:

• A 2.5% back pay increase backdated to 1 July 2015 (as employees haven’t had a pay increase in nearly 2 years)
• A 2% pay increase from 1 July 2016- 1 July 2017
• A further 2% pay increase on 1 July 2017- 1 July 2018 for each year of the agreement.

Feedback received so far from members has not been overwhelmingly positive to this offer. Make sure you tell your local delegate or organiser what you think of the pay offer, and we will give this feedback to management at our next meeting scheduled for June 14th/15th.

‘Your union knows fair pay means two things- keeping up with the cost of living but also getting paid the right rate for the work you do’

Classifications update

You told us that MA is not properly paying you for your skills. We know that MA’s practise is not consistent at times with our industry standards. 

• We are waiting on Management to update us regarding the immediate reclassification of many Level 1 and Level 2 employees. If you are a prospective member on either Level 1 or Level 2 join your Union and help us to help you.
• Your union believes Program Managers are incorrectly classified. Management have said they want to conduct a review of Level 5 employees classifications over the next 12 months. We say the evidence is clear particularly for Program Managers for medium to large centres.
• Your union is negotiating a fair, timely, independent and transparent process to review level 3 and 4 members’ classifications. This will take some time to properly review such a large cohort of members’ classifications.

Areas where Mission Australia are sticking to their position

• Community language allowance: Members have told us it is fair that employees who use a community language (to the benefit of Mission) get paid a small allowance for that.
• Workloads: management will be responding to our claim for a clause that would assist members manage their workloads, and discuss case/work-load pressures with their managers.

Management’s claim to reduce redundancy pay for employees aged 45 and over: ASU members have instructed us to oppose this claim, and we will continue to do so.

We still have some time to influence your employer, if you feel strongly about any of the remaining conditions left unanswered talk to your delegate or email, Monica Dos Santos.