It has been and will be a very busy period of bargaining in the Energy Branch with 4 Enterprise Agreements to be negotiated concurrently over the coming months.
We have been negotiating with Transgrid since July of last year. Negotiations started with promise as all parties were committed to delivering outcomes for employees and members alike. Unfortunately, since Christmas and the new year, Transgrid seem intent on low balling USU members in such a way that has meant we will be asking our membership to begin taking protected industrial action, an action that hasn’t been contemplated by members in Transgrid for many years. We have been and remain committed to delivering outcomes to members in the form of a pay rise that recognises current living pressures.
Similarly at Endeavour, we have been negotiating with them since September of last year with progress being made on a raft of claims submitted as part of bargaining. Whilst the parties are yet to agree on an outcome on wages, progress has been made and continues to be made on things such as: casual car allowances, your right to disconnect from work, long service leave where employees are now eligible to access LSL after 7 years’ service, compassionate leave and mental health first aid, to name a few things. On the big ticket item of wages, we remain confident that we can deliver a fair and reasonable outcome to our members at Endeavour Energy.
Lastly, negotiations with Ausgrid commenced in March with Essential Energy negotiations commencing on May the 8th so, it is early days as at this time and we will report as we begin to progress matters. We can say, however, that the engagement with your fellow members has been overwhelming, especially in the forming of logs of claims and the pursuit of achieving fair outcomes; this applies to Transgrid and Endeavour as well. It is the engagement and strength of our membership in their workplaces that continues to see USU members across the electrical power industry deliver outcomes for their families and colleagues.
