USU@Ausgrid: PROTECTED ACTION BALLOT ORDER

At a meeting of combined union delegates at Trades Hall in Sydney on May 4, your union received endorsement from your elected delegates to commence proceedings to lodge a Protected Action Ballot Order (‘PABO’) – our PABO will be a joint application with Professionals Australia.

You may be aware that the Electrical Trades Union is a bit more advanced in this regard – this is not a problem. In fact, it strategically works in favour of USU and Professionals Australia members given the differences in the nature of the work carried out by members of our unions.

It is intended at the time of writing that the joint application will be lodged in the first week of June. Between now and then, your union will be meeting with key delegates to formulate a list of actions our members can take. The list of actions that we will land on will be drafted in a way that eliminates any risk to the public, given Ausgrid is an essential service, and are actions that our members will be prepared to take and, to these ends, mitigates against our members being significantly financially disadvantaged.

We appreciate that reading this may be cause for concern. We wish to reiterate that your union is fully mindful of the vital work you carry out and that you all have financial commitments to make. We will mitigate against these concerns.

You may recall that the combined unions took such action in negotiating your last Agreement with great success.

If you have any questions, please contact Troy Dunne on 0419 403 076.

MYTHBUSTERS

Your union is fully aware that Ausgrid is broadcasting daily a series of so-called Mythbusters regarding the renewal of your Agreement. We receive the daily updates from our membership as they arrive.

Your union finds this series to be, at best, disingenuous with their very carefully chosen and worded explanations.

For one, the USU has not received concerns from members, or endorsed any claims from members or its organisers, that negotiations have stalled. Further, such a claim hasn’t been made by any representatives from the combined unions sitting on the negotiation committee. Frankly, we are at a loss to explain the necessity for this “Mythbuster.”

With regards to the so called myth around annual leave, as is the case with the above example, the combined unions, their members or negotiating representatives aren’t claiming that Ausgrid wants to control when you take leave. What we are saying is that Ausgrid already have more than ample mechanisms to manage its leave liabilities and it is up to them to manage it. We refute the claim that the mechanisms available to Ausgrid aren’t sufficient. Furthermore, the point at which an Ausgrid employee’s leave balance is considered excess and the mechanisms the business has to manage this excess are standard across many industry types. Where we agree with Ausgrid on the point of annual leave is that it should be taken – annual leave is a union won entitlement that allows people to spend time with their loved ones. We absolutely agree with the business on this point and your union has been vocal in its agreement with this principle.

Where we disagree though, is with Ausgrid seeking to reduce the point at which leave is considered excess and, instead, it should be managing an entitlement that has historically been badly mis-managed – that our members have to now pay for Ausgrid’s practices of mis-management is not acceptable.