Union pursues your priorities at City of Gold Coast

The Services Union’s request for weekly bargaining meetings with City of Gold Coast has markedly improved the momentum of negotiations. Tuesday’s focus was to progress as many of the core issues as possible. Accordingly, we worked closely with the Single Bargaining Unit (SBU) unions to table a revised log of claims to prioritise the matters you’ve been telling us are important.

We reinforced our claim for no reduction of existing conditions over the life of the proposed three-year package. While our headline pay claim remains at 6%, 6% and 4.5% (with uncapped CPI protection on the final year), we advised the City we would reconsider this if the City supported our claim for a 35-hour week. We also clarified our position that the proposed $65 daily on-call allowance should be indexed to the annual pay increases.

Regarding the City’s fortnightly pay proposal, we further refined our position on appropriate safeguards. We stated that we would want a provision to ensure the prompt rectification of pay errors, as well as a commitment from the City to make up the shortfall should any employee’s back-pay not cover the first week of the transition fortnight before a move from weekly pay could seriously be considered.

We took a deeper dive into our claim for an Unpleasant Conditions Allowance, which we say should apply to any worker encountering such conditions. This led to valuable discussion around the City Cleaning LAA. The City is considering our draft wording for the Allowance, and our contribution to the City Cleaning discussion might just bring us closer to a workable way of reviewing all LAAs, which will be the focus of the next few meetings.

Regardless of where you work or what you do at City of Gold Coast, our Union’s priority remains getting the best possible deal with something in it for everyone. Remind your colleagues of what we’re doing, and if they’re not members, encourage them to join online.