The recent Serco Enterprise Agreement vote saw their proposal defeated by employees

Serco revised their offer:

• The two-tiered wages structure, whereby existing employees are grandfathered and new employees put on a new lower scale, has been amended such that new employees will take 12 months to reach the commencement rate of a current employee. After this 12 month period they would progress through the same salary steps as current employees,
• The sign-on amount has been increased from $1,000 to $1,500 (NB pro rata for part timers).

No other changes were tabled.

CPSU representatives responded by stating members and union leadership would be consulted.

CPSU representatives then asked Serco to review and respond to the following issues previously identified by members as important;

1. Minimum hours for part timers

• The Serco position to date has been to conduct a review in the second half of this year, however, via HR processes and outside the Agreement, and the results of this would inform whether or not they would implement. Any policy or process outside the Agreement is unenforceable and cannot be reviewed by the Fair Work Commission (ie the industrial umpire),
• CPSU representatives stated this was not strong enough and needed to be in the Agreement and also the wording of such a clause needed a clear intention to implement minimum hours.

2. Penalty rates

• CPSU representatives restated our position that penalty rates needed to be addressed, especially for Sunday work.

3. Shift worker classification

• CPSU representatives restated our position that eligible Operators should be classified as shift workers, thereby attracting an extra one week annual leave.

4. Re-characterise “sign-on bonus” as “compensation for no pay rise since November 2015

• The $1,500 is NOT a bonus. It is compensation for the fact that no Operators have had a pay rise since November 2015.

5. The next vote should be run by the Electoral Commission

• CPSU stated that the previous vote, administered by Serco, was a shambles and therefore needed to be run by the Electoral Commission.

Serco agreed to respond to the above “shortly”. Serco stated clearly that they intend to roll out another vote asap as expected.

Please email any thoughts you have to Nick Church.