Everyone at the Commonwealth Bank is entitled to RDOs by way of the Enterprise Agreement.
Everyone is entitled to work 40 hours, get paid for 38, and roll those extra 2 hours into a whole day off every four weeks. More than half of CBA employees are unable to access that entitlement because it has been “bought out” in their dodgy IA or because their contract completely distances them from coverage under the EA altogether (AWA ITEA).
Now that CBA’s dodgy contracting practices have led to massive underpayments and ongoing legal questions about how they were offered, CBA are seeking to cut RDOs from the agreement. Under CBA’s proposal only people who get RDOs now will be able to keep them.
But this doesn’t only affect those who get them now. This affects everyone who was never given genuine choice. An entitlement that you never knew about is till an entitlement. CBA has refused to consider an opt in arrangement and are hoping that employees without access to this entitlement won’t ask too many questions about why they were never able to choose.
By cutting RDOs from the EA, the equivalent comparable salary for each of those people on IAs would go down by around 5%, making it easier for CBA to avoid underpaying people by reducing the minimum standard, rather than just doing fairer deals.