WA power companies make last-minute push for non-union agreements
June 29th, 2009
Three of WA’s state-owned power companies are moving to have their employees vote on non-union collective agreements before new federal IR laws commence next week.
Western Power, Horizon Power and Synergy – three of the four companies spun out of the old government electricity monopoly in 2006 – have all taken the step after a breakdown in negotiations with key white-collar union the ASU.
Employees will start voting today at Western Power and Synergy, while the Horizon Power ballot will open on Tuesday next week.
The union is urging a no vote in all three ballots, but the campaign has been hardest fought at Western Power, where over the last month its members have taken protected industrial action, including 24-hour strikes and work bans.
The Western Power agreement is by far the largest of the three, with just over 1,900 employees potentially covered, including about 800 ASU members.
Announcing its decision to go down the non-union path last week, managing director Doug Aberle acknowledged that the timing of the vote was motivated in part by a desire to get an agreement in place before the Fair Work Act commences on July 1.
In a video statement to workers posted on the corporation’s intranet, he warned that any deal negotiated under the new system would be less generous than the current offer.
“It’s critical that everybody [votes] because… after the 1st of July due to changes in the federal workplace legislation we won’t be able to go out directly and, given that we’ve spent this much time trying to negotiate with the union, I thought it was only fair to go to all of you directly while we still have a chance,” he said.
In a separate statement, he said a yes vote would mean Western Power would be the first government corporation in the state to make an agreement directly with its employees and bring it into line with “progressive private sector practices”.
Agreement closes pay gap with market: Western Power
The main obstacle to agreement between the parties has been pay, and in particular the corporation’s desire to recalibrate according to market factors the remuneration of the different employee streams covered by the agreement.
Western Power says the proposed agreement would deliver workers an average 30% rise over its five-year term, but the first year pay increases vary significantly, with operational employees to get 17% on average, professional employees 12% and workers in the business support area 7.5%.
Employee relations manager Bisica Gavranich says the past agreements have delivered across-the-board wage outcomes that have benefited some groups of employees but paid others, particularly operational workers, less than market rates.
“Over a number of years the gap has been widening to the point where there is quite a lot of inequity in rates of pay, with those that aren’t in demand having the benefit of that at the expense of those that are, and that has made negotiations difficult because we’re trying to get the union to do things a bit differently to what they’ve been used to in the past,” she says.
Members resolute in opposing offer, says ASU
The union has a very different view of what’s on offer, arguing 3.5% of the minimum 7.5% on offer in the first year is an inadequate trade-off for downgraded entitlements to sick leave and long service leave and classification changes, with the majority of workers guaranteed only a 13.5% increase over five years.
ASU campaign co-ordinator Paul Burlinson says the agreement would effectively mean that improved wages for 25% of employees in operational areas would be paid for by cuts to basic conditions for the other 75%.
The union is dealing with the potentially divisive issue “collectively” and “so far our membership has remained resolute in wanting a single agreement with fair and decent outcomes across the board,” he says.
He says the union is also consulting its lawyers on possible legal implications arising from the timing of the vote.
“This is their last opportunity to exploit the Work Choices legislation, that’s what they’re about and they’re trying to stitch people up for the next five years before the new laws come in,” he says.
As for Horizon Power and Synergy, both deny their decisions to pursue a direct agreement with their employees were timed to beat the July 1 changeover and say they were forced to take that step after negotiations with the union stalled over pay.
A spokesperson for Synergy, the state’s main electricity retailer, said it had been negotiating with the ASU since the current agreement expired in February (when Western Power and Horizon Power’s agreements also expired), but didn’t want to delay delivering a pay increase to employees any longer.
He said the agreement would deliver most of the 332 employees covered an average 3.5% increase each year over three years, although that could fall as low as 2.2% or rise to as much 7.2% depending on performance..
Horizon Power, which delivers electricity to much of regional WA, will ask the 32 employees eligible to vote on its proposed agreement to accept a 16.5% pay rise over three years.
General manager of people and corporate services David Martin said it was pure coincidence that all three companies had decided to pursue non-union agreements at around the same time.
“We’re all negotiating with the same union and they appear to have taken a line with all three, but we set a June 19 deadline for agreement some weeks ago and we are doing what we believe is right for us,” he says.
All three employers say they would be happy to continue to deal with the ASU if employees vote down the agreements, each pointing to agreements recently concluded with the CEPU for their wage-earning (largely blue-collar) employees.
www.workplaceexpress.com.au Thursday 25th June 2009