USU Delegates – Port Stephens Council – Mathew Knight and Paul Gough
On the 11/6/26 USU Secondee Organiser Dave McLachlan arranged and attended a meeting with Port Stephens Council at the Raymond Terrace Works Depot. USU delegates Mathew Knight and Paul Gough also attended the meeting with Council management.
The meeting was as a result of a grievance that was lodged with Council by the Council’s Drainage Crew in regard to what was perceived by our local USU Delegates, Secondee USU Organiser and USU members as the unnecessary use of contract labour by Council when it was believed that Council’s own workforce could instead have been utilised to perform the work. In the meeting Council claimed that Council’s own workforce was already fully engaged when planning for the work was being conducted and that Council had been granted an amount of money to perform specific works which had to be fully used before the end of the financial year.
When the drainage job for which the external funding commenced and the Contractors were performing the work, the alternative duties which the full-time workforce was meant to be performing at the time had been delayed, so it eventuated that our USU members in Council’s own workforce could instead have been utilised to perform the work, but had been overlooked for this specific job.
The grievance submitted by our USU members requested that in future that Council’s own workforce have more input as to when contractors can be utilised, Council agreed that the Two crew leaders of the affected crews would be involved in future planning meetings, which occur fortnightly, Council also agreed that contractors would only be used if the full-time workforce were unavailable due to being fully engaged in other Council works or did not have the skills required. It was also recognised that communication between Council and the workforce needs to be improved to avoid such situations from occurring in the future.
New USU Member!
Just a lighthearted little article to finish on, I had to travel far and wide to sign up this new member, Ruben is my next-door neighbour and I joked with him that he would be in all sorts of trouble if he didn’t sign up and join!! Top of page: Dave McLachlan USU Secondee Organiser with New USU Member Ruben Macnaughton – Port Stephens Council
