Meetings will be convened in all branches in the week commencing 13 October to vote on the management wage offer. Management has made an offer to extend the current Red Book Agreement for 12 months in return for a 4% salary increase effective from 1 April 2009.
What does the offer mean?
Wages would increase by 4% on 1 April and working conditions defined by the agreement would remain unchanged for a further 12 months. Negotiations would take place in 2009 on three key issues: (Performance Management, Forms of Employment and Work Level Standards, i.e. salary benchmarks) while the wage increase is in place.
Why did management make the offer?
They said that they wanted to concentrate on triennial funding issues between now and May, i.e. when the next federal budget is handed down.
What are the pros and cons of accepting the offer?
Pros
Cons
The wage increases (if we agree) is guaranteed to flow from 1 April 2009. A negotiated agreement would take longer to finalise and is unlikely to deliver a wage increase before July 2009.
The current agreement conditions would be locked in and we would be prevented from securing any improvements until April 2010.
The current agreement conditions are locked in and secured for another 12 months.
No Protected Industrial Action (PIA) could be taken during the extended life of the agreement. If we reject the offer and enter into negotiations PIA could be taken in support of a new claim approximately 4 weeks after the current agreement expires, i.e. May 2009.
It could be risky fixing future wage increases for another three year agreement in the current economic climate. Hopefully the economy will have settled down in 12 months and we could make an assessment at that time for a longer term agreement.
If the economy ‘flat lines’ next year, we may be better off getting a longer term wage increase locked in by negotiating a three year rather than a one year agreement.
Inflation rates are likely to fall faster than earlier forecast, according to the Reserve Bank.
Inflation rates are currently over 4% (4.3%). The management offer doesn’t cover the current cost of inflation.
By putting off negotiations for a new agreement for 12 months, the new agreement would be negotiated in a post ‘Work Choices’ environment i.e. when the new legislation is in place. This means that we can seek changes in the next (i.e. 2010) agreement that are currently prohibited
Management are cutting jobs in TV. We shouldn’t commit to an extension agreement 5 months before the current agreement expires.
