Temporary employment saga continues in the Torres Strait

Today our Union met Torres Strait Island Regional Council (TSIRC) at the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) to continue discussions around the prospect of permanent employment for Senior Housing Officers and Housing Officers. We were also at the QIRC to elaborate on our claim that Council are deliberately withholding permanent employment options for this cohort of employees because they dared to challenge Council.

This flies in the face of the commitments the Council has given to employees under their Certified Agreement as well as the Council’s ‘commitment’ to permanent employment on the 15 island communities. How do you empower local TSIRC employees when you string them along on one-year contracts, year after year, for up to ten years? The solution is simple – just make the current employees in the roles permanent. It was Council’s original plan to have permanent Senior Housing Officers and Housing Officers, after all.

Despite Council digging in and coming to the conciliation meeting earlier today without any solutions, we have been able to progress the matter. All the impacted members will be granted an extension of one more month in their role (up to 30 August 2024). In the meantime the Council has three weeks to have a long hard think about what type of proposal it wants to bring to the table to give their employees job security.

We also discussed an additional permanent conversion application for one of our members on Hammond Island. Her maximum-term role was due to expire on July 31 and Council, only 9 working days away from the expiry have still not been able to explain to her what will be happening to her role and her future prospects at TSIRC. This is just not acceptable when someone who has been at Council for decades and has never had any performance issues is being denied job security. The very people that Council insist that they are trying to look after are being neglected by an employer that, on the face of it, look like they would rather try and get ‘one over’ on the Union than looking after their own employees.

We will keep members updated every step of the way.

Welcome to the multiple new members that joined our Union, predominantly from the 15 island communities. If you work with colleagues that are equally outraged by Council on this matter, then flick them this email and encourage them to join here.