KIT Consultants Settle Seven Month Battle with DPI

After a long haul, KIT Consultants affected by the restructure announced on 5th August 2008 have reached a resolution point with DPI with a win on the proposal to centralise and relocate Library Services.

KIT Cs have opposed the proposal to relocate library services since its announcement.

DPI s proposal will remove the face of library services from its regional and metropolitan research sites and consolidate them at Attwood.

This would have removed the critical human element which currently shapes the quality service delivery provided by KIT Cs.

KIT Cs developed a high quality alternative proposal and ran a public campaign along side it.

Hundreds of ‚Äö?Ñ??No Need to Go campaign cards ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ signed by various service users including DSE, DPI, GM-W staff, local consultants and contractors, PhD students and university lecturers ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ were delivered to the Minister s office.

The KIT Cs alternative proposal was lodged with several letters of endorsement attached and countless examples of positive feedback ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ a testimony to the quality of work currently undertaken by geographically dispersed KIT Cs.

KIT Cs proved to be a force to be reckoned with at all turns.

Not content with DPI s less than coherent rejection of their alternative proposal, KIT Consultants initiated a dispute and took DPI to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission for failing to provide considered reasons for the rejection of their alternative proposal.

DPI and CPSU agreed to consider alternative mechanisms for resolving the dispute during the conference at the AIRC.

CPSU has negotiated a ‚Äö?Ñ??decommissioning period for those KIT Cs who cannot realistically relocate to Attwood.

The decommissioning period provides KIT Cs with additional time and work at their current locations before commencing the usual redeployment process.

Meanwhile, a number of KIT Cs have been fortunate to find work outside of DPI and have since left the public service on their own terms and in their own time.

KIT Cs have set a benchmark in campaign organising which has caught the attention of their colleagues, their communities, the AIRC, the Minister s Office and ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ of course ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ DPI management.

Members are to be congratulated on their principled and determined efforts to protect the library service and to make DPI accountable for the detrimental impact its proposals have upon the lives of members.


KAREN BATT
CPSU Victorian Branch Secretary

25 February 2009