Redundancy policy for SAS Staff, just not in award – 7 May 2013

The PSA’s appeal against the decision to dismiss our application to include redundancy protections for School Administrative and Support Staff in the SASS award has been disallowed by a Full Bench of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission.

The decision was handed down on 26 April.

The Full Bench upheld Justice Boland’s original decision that the State Government’s changes to the Industrial Relations Act prevents policies regarding the management of excess public sector employees being included in Awards.

The decision means that redundancy provisions for SAS Staff will remain contained within a policy won by the PSA rather than more securely enshrined in their award.

While this is disappointing, the Managing Excess Employee Policy for School Administrative and Support Staff which was put in place by the Department on 29 October 2012 as a result of the PSA’s fight for redundancy protections, for the first time grants SAS Staff the same rights to redundancy protections as other public servants.

The policy only came about through the efforts of the PSA.

No such policy existed previously.