In 2022 YOUR UNION the UNITED SERVICES UNION was successful, after many years, in having annual employment statistics included as a compulsory component of every Council’s annual report to the NSW Office of Local Government (the OLG).
Over 2 decades ago detailed annual employment statistics were a mandatory reporting requirement for all NSW Councils until it was removed by a past Government.
As a result of our efforts the USU has been successful in having annual employment statistics reestablished which include total employee numbers, how many are fulltime, part time, casual, term contract, labour hire and apprentices/trainees.
The USU has recently put the 2022 to 2024 statistics into a spreadsheet, where we can track employee numbers and importantly identify the number of insecure non-permanent employee numbers t every NSW Council. Note: we will be including the data once received for each successive year.
The figures are based on the numbers of employees employed on a specific day, with the date to be revealed to the Councils only after the specified date for that year by the OLG, so as to prevent any potentially unscrupulous employers from fudging their employment figures by deliberately instructing non-permanent employees that they wont be required to work on the specific day of which the audit requires the employment numbers and details.
The date is also moved to random dates each year so as to capture data that may not be apparent if the same season of the year was always selected, for example in winter there would be fewer casual staff employed in beaches, pools, parks and gardens etc.
We need your help
The USU will now be commencing a statewide campaign/review to identify any misuse of insecure employment such as casual, labour hire and term contracts. (see our survey links below)
If you know of or are a worker who is in a role that should be permanent or permanent part time especially if you have been working in a role that has exceeded 12 months, we want to know, so we can ensure that the Award is applied correctly in ensuring that roles that should be permanent or permanent part time are as per the Award Clause 28 Casual Employment (ii) (b).
Also, if your Council has been reducing staffing levels or not acting to fill vacancies in a reasonable time, thereby creating unfair and unrealistic work loads we want to ensure that you have your Award rights complied with under Award Clause 10 Resourcing and Directing Employees (ii). Please contact the USU to notify us.
To better understand these Award rights please read the attached updates that include the specific wording from the Award on these issues.
Tell us what you know!
The USU has now created a survey form that can be completed by either online here or by pen (download the paper survey here) which is seeking to have information on insecure positions identified so as to have those positions which should be filled as permanent or at least permanent part time positions identified and the employer then required to comply with their Local Government Award obligations in moving insecure ongoing positions into secure roles.
The Union is also in the process of creating similar survey forms for insecure workers who work in non-Local Government jobs who will almost certainly be covered by the Federal Fair Work Act and the legislated right to request a transfer from insecure casual employment after 12 months into permanent or permanent part time employment depending on the hours they had been working over the previous 12 months.
Once drafted these forms will be circulated to our officials, delegates and members as well as being accessible through our website.
