Following months of negotiations, IAG employees will shortly have an Enterprise Agreement (EA) proposal to consider. While there is more work to do around certain issues, this proposal contains a number of improvements on our existing EA.
Over the past month, we have conducted several union meetings and discussions about the package. To secure the improvements we’ve achieved, we reached an in-principle agreement with IAG, conditional upon final drafting being agreed. We expect IAG will distribute a proposed EA to all staff for consideration shortly.
While further improvements are still needed, together we have made enhancements that include:
- A fixed minimum pay increase of 9.5% over three years for career bands 1-3 (EA level 1-4) and 7.5% for career bands 4-5 (EA level 5-6). Discretionary pay arrangements will continue to apply above these minimum rates. While we will need to continue to build the guaranteed fixed component of our pay increases in the years to come, this proposal is a significant improvement to the 2021 EA which provided a 4.75% minimum increase over the same period.
- IAG have agreed to remove the cap for employees at the top of their salary band so all employees will now receive an increase to their base salary.
- An increase to paid parental leave from 14 to 20 weeks with the removal of the 12-month qualifying period in the current EA. The paid parental leave clause has also been revised to be gender neutral allowing wider access. This proposal will put IAG ahead of many other employers within the industry. In agreeing to this increase, IAG have removed the existing “welcome back” payment.
- An increase to domestic and family violence (DFV) leave from 10 days leave to uncapped leave. This is an industry leading proposal. The proposed package also introduces 10 days DFV leave for those supporting others.
- The introduction of five days “MyLeave” that can be used for any purpose with any single day taken without requiring management approval.
- Inclusion of work from home within the EA for the first time. This inclusion means that working from home is a formally recognised flexible work arrangement and is covered by the “Resolving Workplace Issues” clause in the new Agreement.
In considering the total package, FSU members should also be aware of entitlements that IAG are removing from the current Enterprise Agreement. These include:
- Income protection being removed from the redundancy, redeployment and retrenchment clause and a reduction of the job search period from 12 to 8 weeks. However, as in the current Agreement, the proposal allows an increase (or decrease) of this job search period if both management and the employee agree.
- The current four days of personal/emergency leave has been removed. While IAG have introduced five days of MyLeave (above) which can be used for the same purpose, members should be aware that IAG plan to introduced this on a pro-rata arrangement for part-time staff. Clarification on this matter is currently being sought.
- Notional weekend arrangements for part-time staff is being removed. However, due to member action, IAG agreed to grandfather this arrangement for existing part-time staff.
You can find a further summary of all changes in the new package here.
Next steps
The improvements above show that when we stand together with our colleagues, we build better workplaces. FSU members are encouraged to consider the entire package when casting your vote at the ballot.
This EA is just the start – we have much more work to do around important issues still affecting us (such as hours of work). We need to continue the momentum so that we can keep making further improvements in the future.
Now is the best time to join the FSU if you haven’t already or encourage a colleague to become a member.
If you would like to be more involved, talk with your FSU workplace representative, FSU organiser or email us at [email protected]
