EBA Negotiations
Castricum Bros Dandenong
Despite many requests from the Union to negotiate sensibly and keep the number of changes to the existing Enterprise Agreement to a minimum, the Company has chosen to lock you out in the forlorn hope that this will convince you to give up various conditions in return for a flat $18 increase.
The Company has flagged its intention to pursue a non-Union Agreement under Section 170LK of the Workplace Relations Act rather than 170 LJ, as has been done in the past. What this means is that they wish to negotiate with you as individuals and by-pass your delegates, the Shop Committee and the Union.
Should you believe that the Company's offer is clear and fair, you can of course vote for it without resort to the non-Union method advocated by the Company.
Summary of Proposed Changes
The main points that the Company wishes to offset against the $18 per week flat increase are:
The introduction of part-time work and job share provisions.
The Union has no problem with job sharing and the Company knows this. If the Company wishes to introduce part-timers we would require safeguards to ensure current employees' remuneration is not cut as a result.
The Company wishes to increase the time before you qualify for pro-rata Long Service Leave if you are terminated or retrenched to 7½ years (since the plant opened it has been 5 years).
The Company wishes to include senior trainers into the Agreement. The Shop Committee have no problem with this provided they are not used as defacto staff.
It appears the Company wishes to change some Rostered Days Off to Production Days Off. It seems their intention is to force people to use RDO's to subsidise the minimum payment entitlements but it is not expressed clearly in the proposal. They also want to ban any RDO's until you have accrued 9, and encourage the RDO's being paid out.
They want to remove RDO's from employees off work on WorkCover longer than 20 days. The Company also requires a minimum of 1 week's notice before you can have an RDO.
They want to disqualify workers from entitlement to redundancy if they offer alternative work. We say that the work must be similar in terms of remuneration, skill, hours and security.
The Company wants to be able to bring forward knife sharpening breaks and meal breaks in the event of a breakdown. This will obviously cause problems with those using the smoko trucks or eating heated food.
The Company wishes to re-define some workers from the loadout and offal rooms as packers, not follow-on labourers and thereby potentially cost them up to $200 per week.
The Company wishes to decrease meal money and the hourly waiting-time rate.
The Company wants to remove the task descriptions for the slaughter floor and have some unspecific agreement about replacing various workers with mechanical aides.
The Union has always been available to negotiate on a sensible basis with the Company. It is now 18 months since the last wage increase and $18 represents less than 1% for some employees if taken in the context of 18 months plus the one year the Company proposes for the new Agreement.
Important to Vote
On legal advice, the Union draws your attention to the fact that the Company only needs a majority of voters in any s.170LK ballot. So if you oppose the Agreement you should vote against it, no matter how much you feel like ignoring the process due to its onerous provisions or the political intent of its creators.
