ONKAPARINGA COUNCIL THREATEN TO USE HOWARD’S NEW LAWS

Employees of South Australia’s largest Council Onkaparinga and community members will be gathering at the next Council meeting on Tuesday 2 May at 5:45 pm.

They will be protesting against Council Management's decision to use the Howard Government's new IR laws to try and take away existing employment rights. They will also be supporting elected members who will raise their concerns at the Council meeting with the CEO Jeff Tate.

"Prior to the new laws coming in we had reached agreement with Council on protecting employees' existing conditions" said Australian Services Union Branch Secretary Andy Dennard. "Then Howard's new laws came in and Council Management advised us that they had now decided to look at what existing entitlements they may want to take away from their employees using the new laws."

"ASU members are not prepared to sit idly by and watch their hard fought for conditions taken away by John Howard's new laws or anyone else. It is not compulsory for the Council to use these new laws against its employees and ASU members cannot understand why their Council would want to do this to them."

Employees are also frustrated at the Council's lack of negotiation on reasonable wage increases.

The Council employees affected include librarians, workers in community services, planners, environmental health workers and administrative and call centre workers.