Wednesday afternoon openings – DIAC staff overwhelmingly endorse CPSU position

The draft MOU was overwhelmingly endorsed by affected employees and will now form the basis of negotiations with your employer.

What happened?

As part of the national consultative process agreed to between your union and DIAC, your representatives met with affected employees in service delivery areas to ascertain their key areas of concern. Not surprisingly, staff across regions canvassed shared the same concerns about the significant impact the extension would have on their working lives. These include:

• a loss of "non-public" contact time equal to today’s close down period
• a loss of close down will lead to build up/backlog of emails, caseload and other work normally performed during these times
• training, in terms of time, quality and availability will be detrimentally affected
• the stretching of resources to cover a greater span of hours eventually leading to bigger workload with fewer staff
• pressures on employees to be more flexible and accommodating about meeting operational requirements at earlier/later times of the day i.e. effect on work/life balance.

Affected employees endorse CPSU MOU

Your union delegates and CPSU workplace volunteers circulated a draft Memorandum of Understanding for employee endorsement which was overwhelmingly supported. CPSU is working to ensure the impact on staff of the proposed extension is minimised. Based directly on your feedback, CPSU is seeking an agreement from DIAC on the following:

• guaranteed time off all public contact for effected employees equal to the current close down period
• guaranteed access to training
• no employee will be required to adjust their start/finish time or meal breaks to attend a staff meeting and meetings will be held between 9am - 4pm
• affected employees will not have their work/life balance or careers compromised
• the parties agree to ongoing monitoring and reporting of staff resources.

What happens next?

Your representatives have sought an urgent meeting with senior national management to pursue what is outlined in the MOU. CPSU representatives (including affected workplace delegates) are meeting DIAC this Wednesday at 9:30am. From there, we will schedule in our second round of meetings on paid time to report back the outcomes of the meeting and the next steps. Outcomes secured will apply to all employees in Service Delivery Areas nationally.

If you are directly affected please ensure you attend a meeting. CPSU will be advertising meeting times shortly.

Join the CPSU

Achieving what is outlined in the MOU is completely dependant on how strong your voice is. For those of you who are not members of the CPSU it is time to join today