Building on the Past – Planning for the Future: LG Industry Plan

ASU BRANCH COUNCIL ENDORSE INDUSTRY PLAN: Your Union has been particularly active in the last few months reviewing how we organize across all our varied industries. Local Government has been no exception; it has been the focus of intensive scrutiny and planning.

Why do we need to review our approach? With the looming threats to your rights at work nigh upon us - more than ever, our strategies to continue to secure and improve your wages, conditions and work environment need to be focused, directed and aligned in order to be effective. We can no longer focus on Council's enterprise bargaining time without growing membership and linking efforts across the industry - no Council is an island!

So, what does this mean and what will be done differently? Some internal structural changes to the ASU Local Government Team have already occurred. Previously, each Organiser had a patch of worksites for which they were solely responsible. Given the demands of providing individual services to members, it left little time to devote to building active membership, strength and recruiting new members, key projects if your union is to remain a strong, viable force and relevant in Local Government.

The new team structure has two allocated Organisers assigned to deal on a day to day basis with Workplace Reps and members. Two additional "growth" Organisers work on campaigning and targeted membership growth activities and an Industrial Officer dealing specifically with EB negotiations and grievance handling.

The team and their activities are lead and coordinated by Team Leader Katrine Hildyard. With this new structure you will see more investment in membership education, workplace organizing around issues, Workplace Rep development, strategic organizing and campaigning around EB and highly resourced and focused organizing at specific Councils. These are the first steps in increasing the resources available to Local Government.

The second stage will come when additional resources become available next year as a result of the Workplace Reps and Activists Conference decision to endorse a $1.00 per week increase in dues from 1 July 2006 and a further $1.00 increase from 1 July 2007 - this is subject to consultation with ASU membership - for more information about this new proposal please see the forthcoming ASU branch Newsletter for more details.

Your union is prepared to invest in the personnel and strategies needed to secure a bright and vibrant future, but how does this deliver results? The ASU has developed an Industry Plan with broad industry goals designed to ensure that everything we do is in line with our Union's vision of being "Active. Strong. United." The Local Government Industry Plan was endorsed by your Branch Council at the last council meeting and is currently the subject of consultation with your Workplace Reps..

In brief our Industry Plans have three tiers and the broad goals that are associated with each tier. For the Local Government Industry Plan the areas and broad goals are as follows:-

The broad goals of the INDUSTRY/SECTOR plan are;
To maintain and improve wages and conditions
To achieve common wages and conditions
To achieve classification and wages parity
To achieve value and recognition for workers

The broad goals of the ORGANISING/ORGANISING CAPACITY plan are;
To ensure members understand where their power to win the issues that concern them comes from
To grow and build activism
To build sustainable organising structures
To build membership
To be key stakeholder in industry and have influence

The broad goals of the BARGAINING/INDUSTRIAL PROCESS plan are;
To have efficient and collective industry bargaining process
To use bargaining process to build strength

The Local Government team in conjunction with Workplace Reps will use these broad objectives to create plans for each individual council. This ensures that the Industry Plan is enacted on all levels - across the Industry and in local worksites such as yours.

Keep an eye on our web site for further news on this exciting new phase in our approach, and look out for ASU meetings and info sessions coming to your council over the remainder of 2005.