oneDVA or twoDVA, you decide

Members have already raised concerns about this offer including:

• the impact it will have on the morale of the APS 1 to 5 employees
• the difficulties it may present in motivating APS 1 to 5 employees
• management jeopardising the oneDVA ethos of moving forward together

The outcome of this round of CA bargaining will affect all DVA staff. Have your say at these meetings.

Can’t attend a meeting?

You can attend a CPSU phone hook-up on Wednesday 8 October at 12.30 and 7.00 pm EST day light savings time. Dial 1800 658 960 and then enter 721000# when prompted.

oneDVA restructure Concerns

CPSU wrote to DVA in August 2008 highlighting concerns about:

• the oneDVA restructure process
• management of excess staff and
• DVA not quarantining “potentially excess” employees for vacant positions in DVA as per EA.

DVA has responded but members concerns have not yet been fully addressed. Your union is now escalating this matter to the Secretary.

CPSU national bargaining update meetings

Features of DVA Proposed Collective Agreement 2009-2011

Type and Duration – Three year union agreement. This is a productivity measure and will give both management and staff some certainty over the next three years.

Pay Increases – 12.48% over three years (4% each year). No conditional element to the pay increases.

In addition, DVA is proposing an adjustment to certain Executive Level 1 salary points to address a trend which has seen those points falling behind relative to the APS median and compared to other DVA classifications. The adjustments will be a flat dollar amounts applied prior to the percentage increase.

In addition, it is proposed to bring the bottom of the PAO 1 (APS5) classification into line with the administrative APS 5 bottom point.

There are a number of productivity improvements expected to offset the pay rises and thereby comply with the government’s bargaining framework. These include:

• continued commitment of the parties to implementing DVA's change program through rationalisation, standardisation and consolidation, and
   
• continuation of DVA’s information technology modernisation program through aDVAnce to position the department to meet the future needs of veterans, the Australian Government and our service providers in the most efficient way;
   
• implementing measures to minimise our impact on the environment and improve our sustainability including investigating and assistance with public transport scheme;
   
• promoting employee wellness and managing workplace attendance to reduce unscheduled absences.

Change Support – current levels of support under the redundancy and redeployment provisions to be maintained. Government policy is no enhancements be made to existing redundancy provisions. Reimbursement amount for financial counselling/ career increased from $700 to $850.

Leave and Worklife balance - retain the conditions and flexibilities in the current EA including access to part-time employment, flextime, personal leave for staff with caring responsibilities; adoption leave etc. Maintain Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace Accreditation in suitable locations.

Managing Attendance - To reduce DVA’s high level of unscheduled absence (currently above 16 days)

• implement a Wellness and Managing Attendance Strategy with an emphasis on promoting employee health and wellbeing initiatives;
• continue to provide eligible employees with access to a healthy lifestyle subsidy of $200 per year;
• implement strategies to improve employee engagement in the workplace;
• develop and distribute to line managers regular reports on trends in unscheduled absences;
• promote tools for use by managers and staff in managing absences;
• implement from 1 January 2009 a limit of 5 days personal leave granted without evidence
• continue to encourage employees to use flex leave to cover part day absences wherever possible.

Healthy Lifestyle - The Healthy Lifestyle Subsidy will increase by 100% from $100 to $200 per year for eligible staff. APS6 to Executive Level 2 employees will not be entitled to this subsidy.

Allowances - For those allowances not linked to DEEWR rates DVA is proposing a 7.5% upfront increase fixed for the life of the agreement. This is consistent with the quantum of increases made to allowances in previous years. See Attached table.

AWA Transition – Payment of an allowance (non-superable) to all ongoing APS6-EL2 staff to compensate for AWA benefits such that will be lost. Retention of other AWA conditions such as a Professional Lifestyle Allowance, a four week qualifying period for payment for temporary assignment to a higher level and maximum 30 hour flextime carryover for staff at these substantive levels. An additional at risk component will be provided to IMU IT technical employees

Superannuation – No changes. Employer contribution for employees in private schemes will continue to be as per the PSSap (15.4 percent). Wording to be included in the CA to reflect this current practice.

Flexibility in hours of duty – additional flexibility for agreement on patterns of hours worked within the span of hours. The proposal is that:

• the current span of hours ie. 7.00am to 7.00pm Monday to Friday be retained;
• acknowledge the potential for working patterns in some business areas outside the 8.30am - 5.00pm
• may need to recruit to meet specific business needs where insufficient staff agree to cover span of hours;
• factors that should be taken into consideration from a personal perspective when determining working patterns are specified.