Throughout mid-May to early June the USU has been conducting hundreds of on-site workplace Mass Meetings of USU Members across the State to vote on the proposed 2026 to 2028 NSW Local Government State Award. USU Northern Manager Stephen Hughes looks at the history of the Award vote. He also examines new aspects of the new Award, in particular the MY LEAVE provisions.
Overall, the results have been very positive resulting in an overwhelming yes vote from our members who participated in voting.
I had been concerned that the current cost of living crisis which has been exacerbated by the ongoing middle east conflict, driving up fuel prices significantly and increasing inflation may have resulted in a reduced vote to support the Award package.
In my time in participating and at times leading our Award negotiations over the past 3 decades the worst result I had was 97.55 % yes and the best result was 98.98 % yes with the 2023- 26 Award resulting in 98.38% yes vote, as led by the USU Manager Legal and Industrial Daniel Papps.
The current vote has also resulted in an overwhelming yes vote from the thousands of our Local Government USU members who attended the mass meeting and who voted to deliver another outcome in the mid to high 90% (the final figures to be released very soon).
As a result, the proposed new 2026 NSW Local Government State Award is expected to be ratified in the NSW IRC on the 16th of June and to commence from July 1st, 2026, for 3 years until the next Award is negotiated to commence on July 1st 2029.
This result reflects on the great work done by the USU’s team of negotiators, which was led by the USU’s Manager of Legal and Industrial Daniel Papps, and which included our next generation of leading Officials, including Acting USU Northern Industrial Officer Luke Hutchinson, Southern USU Organiser Aarron Vann, Metro USU Organiser Zoe O’Rourke and USU Communications Officer Emma Chandler who did a fantastic job in putting together online videos and communications to inform our Officials, Delegates and Members of the progress of the Award negotiations.
I want to acknowledge the patience, understanding and common sense shown by the overwhelming majority of our members covered by this Award in their endorsing of it.
I believe the package which includes the 3 x 4 % annual increases (to be paid from the first full pay period after July 1st in 2026, 2027 and 2028) and the conversion of 1 week’s sick leave per year to MY LEAVE along with the other changes is a great result and our members have been very reasonable and pragmatic in accepting pay increases which I do believe will deliver increased standard of living over the 3 year life of the Award, regardless of the current blip resulting from the middle east conflict. Inflation should decrease by next year and the inflation rate should fall below the Award percentage increases during the life of this new Award.
The USU should be proud that since 1997 we have delivered annual Local Government State Award Increases to our members every year unlike many who Awards where workers have not had regular annual increases and even those Federal Fair Work increases are only based as a percentage of the minimum wage, which is significantly below what the majority of workers earn and certainly below what every worker covered by the NSW Local Government State Award receives.
The USU fought hard and succeeded in keeping NSW Councils from being captured by John Howard’s WorkChoices legislation at the time and we were the only NSW Public Sector Award which through our lobbying efforts with the NSW cross bench were excluded from the NSW Public Sector Wage Cap of 2.5 % a year that all other NSW Public Sector Workers had to endure for over a decade, which even worse for them, absorbed the increases of the increased Superannuation Guarantee Payments that saw minimum guaranteed superannuation contributions gradually increase to 12 %. As a result, we were able to deliver pay increases in our successive NSW Local Government Awards above the wage cap.
Regarding the MY LEAVE provisions in the new 2026-8 Local Government State Award, which converts automatically 5 days of the 15 annual sick leave days to MY LEAVE on the employee’s anniversary date, when they receive their next sick leave entitlement, I would like to explain the following and advise members how to best take advantage of this leave.
But first to put things into perspective as to why we haven’t simply negotiated the payment of untaken sick leave into our Award, I provide the following history and reasons.
For those of us long term employees who commenced their career in NSW Local Government prior to 1993 when the NSW Nick Greiner led Liberal Government was elected and commenced John Howard style ideological attacks on worker’s conditions and their Unions, with one such anti worker attack being the prohibiting by legislation of the payment of untaken sick leave covered by Awards or Agreements.
At the time many Councils had Agreements but importantly Policies which granted the payment of untaken sick leave to employees on retirement or resignation.
For example, Narrabri Shire Council for whom I became a permanent employee in 1985 had a Policy which granted the payment of untaken sick leave as 33.33 % after 10 years’ service, 50 % after 15 years’ service and 100 % of untaken sick leave after 20 years’ service.
When the new legislation was enacted, employers including Councils sought to use this as an excuse to end any paid entitlement of untaken sick leave, but not just to new employees who had never had it, but to all employees including those who had access to the payment of untaken sick leave.
The USU, (then the Municipal Employees Union), ran a test case on this against the then Murrurundi Shire Council who had a Policy of providing payment of untaken sick leave to its staff, which Council terminated as a result of the then new legislation which made the payment of untaken sick leave illegal under Awards or Agreements.
Your Union won the case, as the legislation was ruled to not have prohibited or prevented Policies from providing for the payment of untaken sick leave, as the legislation only covered Awards and Agreements.
The Policy entitlement was deemed to be part of the employee’s contract of employment and formed part of their working conditions, for those who had been employed while the untaken sick leave Policy was in place.
Unfortunately, Councils who had been providing access by Policy to the payment of untaken sick leave decided to cease the payment for new employees and to grandfather (preserve) it thereby limiting it to those who had been covered by the Policy.
The later elected Bob Carr NSW Labor Government which replaced the NSW Liberal led Greiner Government, legislated to provide the legal ability to grant the payment of untaken sick leave in workplace Agreements but did not extend this to Awards.
This is why we cannot legally include the payment of untaken sick leave in the Award or even in our Award log of claims, even if by some miracle the Employer’s Association was prepared to agree to include it.
It should be noted that in the 2 decades since the payment could legally be negotiated into local workplace agreements, that no Council has been willing to do so.
Because of this, most long-term Council employees who haven’t had to access significant amounts of their accrued sick leave, retire or resign with substantial amounts of untaken accrued sick leave with no benefit to them for not utilising it.
The new MY LEAVE clause will allow Council workers to utilise up to 5 days of their annual accrued sick leave each year in a flexible manner which would mean that they wouldn’t need to instead utilise the equivalent period from their accrued annual or long service leave.
Untaken annual and long service leave is paid out on resignation or retirement (remembering that long service leave isn’t accessible until after 5 years’ service).
This provides a means whereby there is a benefit to employees who have utilised their MY LEAVE instead of annual or long services leave under this new Award provision.
My advice would be that if a USU member has got a comfortable amount of accrued sick leave to access if needed, that they should utilise their 5 days of MY LEAVE annually before taking annual or long service leave.
It should be remembered that MY LEAVE does not continue to accumulate if untaken each year and any untaken MY LEAVE must be applied for at least 1 month before the next annual accrual to be transferred back into sick leave where it can continue to be accrued.
The way the MY LEAVE has been worded in the proposed Award is quite frankly a pain in the arse and will be more so for Council’s admin and payroll, but it is where it landed after significant involvement of the IRC and the inflexibility and lack of common sense on this matter as demonstrated by the Employer’s association.
The USU is going to write soon to every Council to simplify the MY LEAVE transfer in local agreements to make the process more simple and easier for all by retaining it in the sick leave balance rather than creating a separate register.
The Employer’s Association had wanted to reduce sick leave to 10 days and any untaken MY LEAVE would be forfeited, which we would never agree to, however under the new Award provisions employees will be required to request that any untaken MY LEAVE be returned to their sick leave accruals.
The IRC agreed with the Unions to allow for workers to apply to recredit untaken MY LEAVE back into their accrued sick leave, thereby allowing people not to be disadvantaged.
The USU has drafted single page forms for our USU members to apply to move untaken MY LEAVE back into their sick leave which can be used at any Council who doesn’t agree to our request to retain the MY LEAVE in the employee’s sick leave accruals.
Where we don’t reach agreement on this most non-Union members though may not be aware and may end up losing unused MY LEAVE.
