ACTU NSW Infrastructure Maintenance Enterprise Agreement Negotiations 2016/17 – Update No 10

Bulletin – 10 – 2017

To: RTBU ARTC infrastructure Maintenance Members,

On Wednesday, 29^th March 2017 your EA negotiating team met with ARTC to discuss your new agreement.

After numerous meetings centred on the issues with progression and the classification structure, ARTC have proposed automatic progression to Level 2. ARTC have also proposed a new annual training plan document which would see local managers obligated to sit down with each of their employees individually to discuss their training needs and plans for that year.

Any progression past Level 2 will be by competency attainment through your annual training plan with your local manager. ARTC will be proposing a clause that reflects these commitments in our next meeting on the 3^rd May 2017.

Until your negotiating team has had a chance to review the intent of the wording of this new clause, no in principal agreement has been made.

Considering we have managed to agree to the removal of certain ‘Road Block’ competencies that are halting progression, your negotiating team are hopeful that this will provide a mechanism for employees to provide feedback on training issues with their management in an attempt to progress through the classification structure.

This is a major step forward from previous negotiation meetings.

Discussions were also had on your additional claims which are as follows;

• 4% Increase to all wages, allowances and expenses per annum;
• Carer’s Leave to be separate too Sick Leave;
• Introduction of Domestic Violence Leave;
• Enforce Clause 7.2.2 and introduce Local Consultative Committees (LCC’s) at each location.

We were informed that LCC’s are currently running in some areas. The RTBU notified ARTC that they would investigate the utilisation of the LCC’s through the tour that is to be conducted in April. If LCC’s are not being utilised as they should be or are not enforce at all, this will be taken back to management to formulate the committee in any areas that do not have one running or are running incorrectly.

When discussing the introduction of domestic violence leave ARTC referred to their leave policy which already provides such leave. This is a positive initiative by ARTC; however, their leave policy is not broad enough to cover all types of domestic violence.  It was proposed to ARTC to improve on the definitions of domestic violence within their policy to include; Physical, sexual, financial, verbal or emotional abuse by a family member as forms of domestic violence.

ARTC management notified your negotiating team that a package offer will be put on the table in our next meeting. This offer will include; pay rises, domestic violence leave, automatic progression, training plans, assessment improvements, and separating carer’s leave and sick leave.

As indicated earlier in this bulletin and throughout previous bulletins, a tour will be conducted by your union organisers throughout April 2017 to seek feedback on the enterprise agreement, consultative committees, training concerns and to allow the Infrastructure organisers to introduce themselves to all members around the ARTC network.

A bulletin with dates, times and locations of these visits will be forthcoming in the next couple of weeks. We look forward to seeing you all in April.

In Unity!