ABS - A decent agreement for Interviewers…. at last
4 June 2009, 3:30pm
CPSU has been negotiating with ABS for months to try and ‘extend and vary’ your certified agreement.
For a while it looked as though negotiations were stalled, however we are now pleased to announce that negotiations have reached the point where the proposed agreement is good enough to put before for members for a vote.
What’s new in the proposed CA?
Superannuation: A guaranteed 15.4% contribution regardless of the fund. This is the APS standard. Up until now ABS may have only contributed 9% to your super. This was because ABS didn’t have to pay more, so they didn’t.
Pay: CPSU has negotiated a 4.3% base rate pay increase to your wage, plus a further 3.5% because we have negotiated an upgrading in the survey classification.
15% loading: You will still receive the 15% casual loading until the end of the year. After this you will receive a Paid Leave entitlement and a residual loading (see further details immediately below).
Paid Leave: The Fair Work Act National Employment standards come into effect 1/1/10. This means that from I January 2010 ABS will be required to provide you with an entitlement for paid leave (annual 20 days pro rata; sick leave 10 days pro rata; etc.). In this circumstance you will not continue to receive you 15% ‘casual loading’.. You can choose subject to operational requirements to take all the Annual Leave at a time you would normally predict to be working and be paid, or you could choose to take the annual leave at a time you would normally predict not to be working. This would work effectively like cashing the annual leave. Sick Leave is more complicated. You cannot cash this out. When you take a sick day you will need to provide a certificate.
The ABS methodology for calculating your leave arrangements (annual and sick/carer) is complicated. We have established a detailed document with ABS which explains the new Paid Leave arrangements. All Interviewers are encouraged to read through this document as some of the process are quite complex.
Because the paid leave entitlement may not have financially offset the 15% loading ABS has agreed to provide a residual loading of 4%. This will be added to the 5% Interviewer Loading to provide a total of a 9% loading which will come into effect on 1 Jan. 2010.
Other: Clauses dealing with protecting you in the workplace are OK. Some clauses, especially around the proposed Performance Management Scheme that the bargaining team wanted taken out of current Guidelines documents and put in the CA have remained in the original documents. Your bargaining team believes there is little scope to push ABS further on these clauses.
So what’s next?
Your CPSU bargaining team is committed to establishing this agreement as soon as possible. This will ensure that the full benefits established under the agreement are provided to Interviewers quickly. There are a number of steps, with the first being a vote of CPSU Interviewer members in the week of 15 June 2009. If the proposed agreement is endorsed it will proceed to an all Interviewer vote.
At this stage subject to endorsements we do not expect the new Agreement to be in place until August or September.
You should note:
Union membership in PSO Interviewers has made this possible.
If you are not yet a member see the form attached with this bulletin.
You must be a member to participate in the initial endorsement ballot.
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