Today, your union met with MTC after having tabled two offers last week. MTC was supposed to report back to the union last Friday with a response but ended up postponing the meeting to today as they apparently hadn’t costed these revised two offers.
As you may recall, the union’s offers from last week included a sign-on bonus for members, and a shorter Enterprise Agreement (a three-year term instead of four).
MTC stated today it would not accept a shorter Enterprise Agreement, preferring instead to have members lock into a longer Enterprise Agreement with a pittance of a pay increase (i.e. 2.5 per cent per annum). They then offered a $750 sign-on bonus – half of what the union asked for. This would work out to be around $500 after tax.
The union advised MTC that this was completely unacceptable and downright offensive. Members have waited almost a year for a pay increase, only to have MTC yet again inform the union that it simply cannot afford to pay a wage that would help with the currently cost of living crisis. The union attempted last week to provide MTC with a concession and requested that it pay a sign-on bonus to give members something to compensate for last’s years lack of wage increase, only to be offered half of that.
MTC also stated it has spent a lot of money on developing staff over the past few years (although this is redundant with the rate at which members are leaving to go and work for CSNSW), and that they have provided staff with other opportunities. With respect, it is not the view of the union that the opportunity to work on Nauru is compensation enough for having worked hard throughout a global pandemic, especially given that employees relocating to Nauru takes employees out of the prison and leaves the facility even more short-staffed.
As a result of today’s meeting, the union intends on notifying MTC of another 48-hour strike. We will do this over the next couple of days, and immediately notify all members when we do this. Please make sure that you keep an eye out for communication from the union, as we will be in touch via text and email over the coming few days.
In the meantime, if you have any questions and want to talk to someone about the upcoming industrial action, please speak to Mark Ward or Brian Kirk. Alternatively, you can call Jess Epps on 0401 521 561 or Kim Villanti on 0408 249 277.
