As you would have already noticed, voting for an Enterprise Agreement proposed by your employer the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) opened yesterday.
The CPSU has not agreed at the bargaining table to the enterprise agreement that is being put before you today as we believe your concerns have not been heard nor provided for. As is their right, the NHVR have decided to put it to a ballot of employees regardless.
Whilst your colleagues under the administrative agreement have accepted your boss’ proposal, it is not incumbent, nor strategic for you to do the same.
One of the clear reasons your Union is encouraging you not to is the threat this agreement represents to your job security.
The NHVR has inherited a national workforce from the states whose locations, structure and responsibilities it did not design.
It is clear there have been historic operational and resourcing differences between the jurisdictions.
This may not be a bad thing it demonstrates the seriousness with which your important regulatory responsibility has been treated by your respective state governments, but also provides a variety of approaches and skills.
The NHVR doesn’t see it this way as it strives for national uniformity. To get there it would need to ruthlessly restructure.
The only thing stopping it from doing so is the current prohibitive cost of redundancies.
Your union believes your current redundancy packages are a fair proposal designed to adequately compensate you for the inconvenience should you lose your job through no fault of your own. The NHVR sees them as a restriction and is proposing a new, lower formula for severance payments in this EA.
If NHVR wasn’t thinking of using them, why would it seek to lower their value?
Tell NHVR you value your job and your colleagues and VOTE NO to an EA that cheapens their exit.
The bargaining representatives, including your union, simply return to the bargaining table and continue negotiating.
There is no change to who is bargaining nor who the new agreement will apply to.
More importantly there is no change to your current terms and conditions of employment – your Award continues for a number of years until it is replaced.
Quite simply voting YES is accepting a step backwards, while voting NO at least keeps the status quo.
