After 13 meetings of the Enterprise Bargaining Committee, a number of sessions conducted by management, individual conversations the Chair of the Bargaining Committee had with the FSU reps and repeated advice at the table of the employee position around key employee claims, the business claims it cannot reconvene enterprise bargaining until it knows what employees think.
This is not respectful to employees nor the bargaining process and totally unacceptable in a situation where the business is looking to merge with another super fund.
Your Union has attempted to get Energy Super back to the negotiating table so that your concerns with the proposed agreement can be tabled and negotiations can continue. Given the continued refusal to meet, the FSU is seeking the assistance of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) in moving bargaining forward.
A bargaining dispute was lodged with the FWC this week seeking support to get the agreement of the business to return to the table and to demonstrate their commitment to good faith bargaining through the setting of meeting dates. It is disappointing that the assistance of the FWC is necessary to get the employer back to the table. What matters now is that all necessary steps are taken to get a fair agreement at Energy Super.
It was December 2018 when the FSU met with senior management of Energy Super for an initial discussion about the timing and process for commencing bargaining. One year later there was formal “approval” from the Board to commence bargaining but “no earlier than the week beginning 13 January 2020”. The parties met in a “preparatory meeting” on Tuesday 14 January 2020 with the first formal meeting held on 7 February 2020. The final meeting was 12 October 2020 and the outcome of the ballot advised to employees and the FSU on 13 November 2020.
It is time to get back to the table.
