Union pursues better pay at Maranoa Regional Council

The Services Union will always be by your side to negotiate the best possible Certified Agreement (CA) at Maranoa Regional Council. You’ve supported your community throughout unprecedented disruption, and we know your pay and conditions should reflect this. Unfortunately the Council doesn’t agree.

The Council thinks that 3.5% is an acceptable pay increase, even though the underlying rate of inflation is currently 6.1%. The Council doesn’t even want to make the increases payable annually. While it supports backdating the first increase to 1 July 2022, the Council wants you to wait until the first anniversary of the CA’s certification for your second increase, meaning you would have to wait until well into 2024. We put it firmly to the Council that all increases should be payable on 1 July each year, meaning you never have to wait any longer than twelve months.

The Council has rejected your claim a nine-day fortnight. While it wants to expand your ordinary hours to 5am – 7pm to “harmonise” with the outdoor staff, the Council doesn’t want to do the same when it comes to RDOs! The Council has further rejected your claim for a 3% employer-contribution margin above the superannuation guarantee.

Additionally, the Council wants to cap redundancies at 52 weeks, stop you purchasing extra annual leave, and introduce multi-engagement provisions which potentially reduce your access to overtime or TOIL. All up, it’s not good enough, and that’s what we’ll tell the Council when we meet again next Tuesday.

The Council will try and sell its deal to you before then. We will organise a meeting with members once we have a proposal worthy of your consideration. Remind your colleagues of what we’re doing to maintain and improve your conditions, and if you work with anyone who is not yet a member, encourage them to join online .