IMPORTANT Mission Australia Bulletin

Your ASU bargaining team has fought hard over the past six months to secure the best deal possible in negotiations with Mission Australia for a new enterprise agreement. Management is unwilling to make any further improvements and is determined to push it out to a vote. Our assessment is that overall the agreement falls well short of what workers deserve.

It’s now over to workers to have their say in voting ‘NO’ or ‘YES’.

By now, you should have received a copy of the draft agreement with explanatory material from Mission.

Below is a summary of union claims rejected by management:

⮽ Wages. We sought a 5% increase while management would not budge from its offer of the yearly minimum wage increase set by the Fair Work Commission plus 1%

⮽ A sign-on bonus (one-off payment as an alternative to our wage claim)

⮽ Inclusion of a new ‘Cultural Load Payment’ for Indigenous employees

⮽ Improved flexible work options

⮽ Review of classifications

⮽ Increasing superannuation to 16%

⮽ Annual leave loading

⮽ A health and wellbeing allowance

⮽ Improved professional development provisions

The ASU bargaining team secured the following improvements:

☑ Inclusion of the ASU’s Part-Time Employment clause and removal of Mission’s ‘Flexible Part-time’ clause. This means part-time employees are entitled to a regular pattern of work that can only be changed by agreement

☑ A new entitlement to 7 days of Reproductive Health Leave

☑ A 3-year agreement instead of a 4-year one (so we can negotiate a better deal sooner)

☑ Correction of numerous drafting issues

TSU is concerned about a number of other issues with the agreement. Namely, the inclusion of a values statement into a legally enforceable document means that those values become legally enforceable. The problem with this is that it's unclear how concepts such as “compassion” and “celebration” could be enforced by the Fair Work Commission if a dispute arose. We have written to Mission about this because it raises the question as to whether the proposed agreement will be approved by the Commission even if employees vote in favour. Mission has refused to remove the values statement and it is unclear what will happen at the approval stage.

Still have questions?

Come along to our members meeting to discuss this agreement and what it means for you.

NATIONAL MA-ASU MEMBERS MEETING 

Monday 26 August 

11am-12pm (AEST), via Zoom 

Go to bit.ly/46Reg5f to register.

Once you’ve registered you’ll receive an email with the link for the meeting.

If you require any support or additional information, please contact your local TSU delegates or TSU Organiser.