SITREP No. 22/2011
June 3, 2011
http://fbeu.net/2011/06/sitrep-no-222011/
Inside this issue:
“Guns & Moses” in bed with O’Farrell – 300 000 workers shafted
Cost cutting at any cost – Personal Protective Clothing (PPC)
J & Z Relieving Guide
“Guns & Moses” in bed with O’Farrell – 300 000 workers shafted
At SITREP goes to press, it’s reported that the Shooters and Fishers Party and Fred Nile have shafted public sector workers by backing Barry O’Farrell’s industrial relations legislation. Greens and Labor MLCs are attempting to delay the vote to allow unions to continue with a community campaign against the draconian laws – which effectively turn the O’Farrell Government into its own industrial relations tribunal, answerable to no-one.
Thanks to all those members who have attended community protests this week. We’ve also had members telling MPs their own personal stories as to why this legislation is unfair and unacceptable. We need more of this to help slow down the introduction of the Bill.
Some quotes from Greens MLC David Shoebridge neatly capture the problems with the proposed legislation:
“The Government knows it has trouble winning with the current policy on its merits in any fair arbitral decision. So, it says, “Why don’t we just win the case before we start it? Instead of having to go to all that trouble of convincing a commissioner or a judge about the merits of our case, why don’t we just change the law and win the case by issuing a regulation that basically says to the commission, ‘We win’?”… “It is even less choices than WorkChoices, it’s no choices.”
Under this legislation we are faced with an impossible choice. We either take real wage cuts, or we allow positions to be lost and stations to close to fund a payrise. This puts the community, and firefighters, at unacceptable risk.
But O’Farrell may have bitten off more than he can chew. Public Sector Unions are organising in response. Expect industrial action over the coming weeks.
Cost cutting at any cost – Personal Protective Clothing (PPC)
The cost cutting culture that now malodourously permeates all the Department’s decision-making processes has spread even to the tender evaluation of the most basic of our safety equipment – our new PPC. In light of this, State Committee last week passed the following self-explanatory resolution:
“That the report on the operation of the PPC tender process and the disturbing but nonetheless unsurprising advice that the Department intends to assign an inappropriately significant weighting in the tender evaluation process to expense be received and noted, and that the State Committee reaffirms that PPC should be evaluated exclusively on the basis of safety and utility, rather than cost.”
More to follow in the coming weeks.
J & Z Relieving Guide
There’s a new J & Z Relievers Guide on the Union’s website.
Jim Casey
State Secretary
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