The Service NSW Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) was held on 12 December 2019, the following bulletin is a report back to members of that meeting and current issues between the PSA and Service NSW.
- Customer Concierge Operator (CCO) & Customer Service Representative (CSR) – Dispute
The PSA has raised a grievance in accordance with clause 45 of the Service NSW Salaries & Conditions Employees Award 2018 as to the current role descriptions of CCOs and CSRs. Our position is that SNSW didn’t consult with the PSA when the role descriptions changed in September 2018 causing CCOs to be consistently tasked with work of the higher remunerated CSR role and CSRs have had a Grade 6/7 duty shoehorned into their role, namely, undertaking call evaluations.
A meeting with the Department to further this grievance has been arranged for Thursday 23 January 2020.
- Driver Tester relief pool
Concerns have been raised with the PSA as to changes made to how DT relief staff are allocated their ‘home base’, with newer staff being given the option to use McKell as their home base.
This creates a potential inequality between staff with DT relief staff prior to this having the Macarthur Service Centre as the base allocated by management.
DT Ops is looking further into the issue and will report back to the PSA.
- Takata Airbag Recall
Driver Testers have been concerned over the safety recall of the Takata Airbags. The PSA has been in ongoing discussions with the Department to insure the safety of our members.
The PSA acknowledges that the Department’s response to the immediate recall has been prompt, although some members have legitimately raised concerns about those which are listed and are not on the immediate recall list.
After further discussions with the Department at the JCC on 12 December 2019, the Department has proposed to arrange a meeting with the PSA, Driver Tester Operations and with relevant experts from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
The current advice as communicated to members remains. Click HERE for a copy of that advice.
- 2020 Award negotiations
PSA delegates have begun work on putting together a draft log of claims to initiate the 2020 Award negotiations with Service NSW.
This is a good time to remind members of some the severe limitations that have been imposed on NSW public sector employees through the current Government’s 2011 Wages Policy.
This has taken away the Industrial Relations Commission’s ability to hear work value cases as was previously done by the PSA and requires that any above-Treasury increases to salaries must be funded through employee contributions – i.e. trading off Award conditions.
It is a PSA/union principle not to trade off conditions, so this does significantly limit our scope in negotiations.
That said, there is always room for changes and improvements that don’t have a cost associated to them and as always the PSA will seek the input and support of the members as part of this process.
- Machinery of Government (MoG) Changes and impact on Service NSW
While the MoG changes have not directly at this time impacted on the Service NSW roles in the Contact Centres and Service Centres, there has certainly been a significant impact on Service NSW within Corporate Services such as People and Culture, Property, Procurement and Finance.
A large number of SNSW staff in these areas have been transitioned from working directly for SNSW under the Service NSW Salaries and Conditions Award to the DCS Corporate Services on the Public Sector Salaries Award.
This has been managed through the Transfer Management Plan (TMP). While the final TMP was better than that first submitted the PSA is seeking legal advice as to what further industrial options may be available as we recognise that the current salary maintenance which is effectively a ‘salary freeze’ until such time as CPI increases bring them into parity with the crown is less than ideal.
The PSA also notes that throughout 2020 there will be a substantial increase of roles being transferred from other areas of DCS such as Revenue and the Better Regulation Division into SNSW, through the Customer Engagement Integration (CEI) on which initial consultation has just begun with much more to occur over the following months.
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