Bargaining for your first EnergySuper Enterprise Agreement formally commenced in late January and some progress has been made.
See our Summary of EnergySuper Negotiations.
Both employee and employer proposals have been tabled and to date there is in-principle agreement on some of the claims, a few issues have been withdrawn by agreement and the rest are in various stages of negotiation, with some significant issues not yet dealt with in any detail.
What about those that are not agreed?
The current major areas of disagreement are about Scope and the Redundancy, Redeployment and Retrenchment (RRR) provisions.
Although the majority of Line Managers have sought to be included in the agreement (to be in Scope) and have approached the ESIFS Board with this request, the Board has not yet revisited its initial decision to exclude them from being covered by the new Agreement.
This is just not good enough in these uncertain times. Excluding a group of employees from the protections an Enterprise Agreement provides is not acceptable to our collective minds. Industry Super Funds who do have exclusions to coverage are only at the Executive level, not Line Manager level. ESIFS needs to do the right thing by all employees and if they continue to ignore FSU’s request for a response on this issue we will look at options for Fair Work intervention.
The viability of small Superannuation Funds has never been under greater threat than now and the resultant pressure to merge with other funds is at the forefront of every Board’s thinking. Media stories bring this to the attention of FSU members daily and naturally, members are concerned for their future job and financial security. In the event of a merger, some jobs may no longer exist. That’s why FSU members are seeking enhanced Redundancy, Redeployment and Retrenchment (RRR) provisions that are comparable with other like funds in the industry.
The current RRR provisions are the legal minimum that can be offered to any employee working anywhere. The FSU proposal calls for Retrenchment payments up to a maximum of 52 weeks which is consistent with that offered by many industry funds.
The ESIFS proposal makes only slight adjustments to the legal minimum, which is just not good enough. Is it right for ESIFS to seek to exclude Line Managers from the protection of enhanced RRR entitlements?
What do you think?
This is your negotiation and the Worker Council and Bargaining Reps want to ensure they are representing you as they work through the outstanding proposals.
Simply email your views to gaye.vale@fsunion.org.au . The next meeting of the Enterprise Bargaining Committee is 11 June. We welcome all feedback and encourage all members to speak to their colleagues about joining your union to help achieve the best possible agreement for ESIFS employees.