C0017/899, Transcript of Proceedings [2003] AIRCTrans 2280 (12 June 2003)

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TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRIAL

RELATIONS COMMISSION

SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT DUNCAN

C No 00178 of 1999

THE HIGHER EDUCATION WORKERS VICTORIA
(INTERIM) AWARD 1993

Review under section 51, item 51,
schedule 5, Transitional WROLA Act
1996 re conditions of employment

SYDNEY

9.31 AM, THURSDAY, 22 MAY 2003

Continued from 15.4.03

THIS MATTER WAS CONDUCTED BY VIDEOCONFERENCE IN SYDNEY

PN53

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. I'll take appearances again because there have been some changes. I'll start at the end of the table with Ms Ilias at it and go straight down the table. There's no one appearing in Sydney.

PN54

MS V. ILIAS: Good morning, your Honour. Ilias, initial V., appearing on behalf of the LHMWU.

PN55

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you.

PN56

MR R. THOMAS: Thomas, initial R., appearing on behalf of the NTEU.

PN57

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr Thomas.

PN58

MR M. BOWN: Bown, initial M., representing The University of Melbourne.

PN59

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr Bown.

PN60

MR K. CAMERON: Cameron, initial K., representing AHEIA, and I appear in lieu of David Wedgwood who I think appeared last time.

PN61

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: That's right, Mr Cameron. Thank you.

PN62

MR S. BLOGG: Blogg, initial S., appearing on behalf of Monash University, and I'm filling in for Mr Greg Crundall.

PN63

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr Blogg. I might mention before we get properly started that I received a letter from the CPSUs Mr Perica in which, omitting the formal parts, states that:

PN64

The position of the CPSU in relation to the future conduct of this proceeding is that we would be ...(reads)... with representatives of most of the employers we indicated this position to them.

PN65

I don't know whether that helps or hinders but we'll find out. Mr Cameron, you've been, or I hear has been active. Perhaps I might ask you to sketch in the present position.

PN66

MR CAMERON: Thank you. The letter from the CPSU is correct in that the NTEU and CPSU and the employer - most of the employer representatives met last week to discuss where we were at. Certainly from the NTEUs point of view, they were keen to find out what the status was of each of the institutions with respect to whether they wish to pursue an institute specific award, or whether they wished to continue to remain respondent to a simplified general industry award, if you like, and certainly I e-mailed you yesterday, or e-mailed to Steve yesterday, a copy of the position of my members in respect to where they saw themselves, and that's in line with the position that I had passed on to the NTEU and CPSU last week.

PN67

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I've got that document.

PN68

MR CAMERON: Okay. I'm actually now just giving a copy of that to the unions but the position of - if they look at the bottom, the position of Victoria College of the Arts is still an unknown to me. They're in the process of changing their Human Resource Manager and I haven't been able to glean a position from them at this stage. But, apart from Latrobe University, who have indicated that they would prefer an institute specific award, all my other members wish to just stay with the institutes - sorry, with the general award in a simplified form, once again, except for Australian Catholic University who have got their own award that - for general staff that covers their employees in Victoria and, as I understand it, it was an award that you've just recently made.

PN69

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: That's right. It has been recently made.

PN70

MR CAMERON: Yes. So, in that respect, we will be making application shortly to remove them from respondency to the HEW award. So this document outlines our position in respect of where my member institutions wish to head.

PN71

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I see. That's the document headed "Draft Directions."

PN72

MR CAMERON: No. That's just the - the document has just got the institutions on the left-hand side and their preferred course of action.

PN73

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Yes. Yes. I'm with you now.

PN74

MR CAMERON: Given that most of my members, and even Latrobe to an extent, are happy to go down the path of maintaining one award, what we had decided in our meeting last week was that the draft directions as were discussed with Commissioner Smith some time ago would be revised, if you like, or refreshed, given the number of years between then and now, and that we would discuss those directions with you today and, hopefully, they could be issued so that the parties can proceed with this matter.

PN75

Now, as we say, at the meeting last week it was only the CPSU and the NTEU that were present, and that only covers - if you look at those draft directions, it only covers the section under the heading "Higher Education Group." So there's been some agreement between us with respect to that, but there's been no agreement between ourselves and any of the other unions with respect to the miscellaneous group or the trades group that's also contained in those draft directions.

PN76

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Do I take it that the words in bold are new?

PN77

MR CAMERON: That is my understanding, yes. That is correct.

PN78

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: So that in the miscellaneous group there's quite a lengthy set of considerations for the LHMWU and, similarly, for the CFMEU and the CEPU and the trades group?

PN79

MR CAMERON: There were some words there previously. These words have just been - we've updated to reflect that any discussions that may have taken place since the draft was first done before Commissioner Smith.

PN80

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I see.

PN81

MR CAMERON: So this reflects what we believe to be the current point of view, as of today. Now, as there is only one of those who was involved previously, it may be that some other work has taken place that we're not aware of, and if that's the case then we would suspect that it's up to the union parties to notify us of what that was and what the outcome of that was. But, as of today, this is the position as we see it.

PN82

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I see. Thanks, Mr Cameron. I'll turn first to the two unions concerned in the higher education group. I'm working through these draft directions item by item - that is, group by group, I mean, not item by item. What's the position of the NTEU, Mr Thomas?

PN83

MR THOMAS: Your Honour, the position of the NTEU is that we are reluctant to look at something as substantial as draft directions. When we did meet, whilst we had no particular problem ourselves with the proposed timeframe of the dates, because a number of the unions - other union were apologies at the meeting we had and, again, are not present here today, certainly it would be difficult to go ahead without consultation with them. The - but we did give an undertaking that that would not prevent us pursuing issues that are pertinent to what's been labelled in the past, the higher education stream.

PN84

But we did raise the question, and I mentioned this briefly with Steve on Tuesday in Sydney, in relation to who are the respondents to the awards, and certainly one of the successors-in-law to the old Hawthorn Institute is, in fact, Melbourne University Private Limited, and there is the existence of the HEW Vic roping-in awards which cover some of the research institutes, namely, Howard Florey Institute, the Lubeck Institute and the McFarlane Burnett Institute, and those employers have not been involved in this process up to this stage and we think it would be proper for them to be informed and included in this process and certainly they would fall within the higher education stream as opposed to, you know, the underlying awards that apply to the trades and the miscellaneous groups.

PN85

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Well, certainly roping-in awards are usually dealt with in conjunction with the parent award.

PN86

MR THOMAS: Yes.

PN87

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: And I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that respondent employers - employers respondent to the roping in award should be notified of these proceedings and given the opportunity to participate.

PN88

MR THOMAS: Yes. I think we've sort of had informal discussions about this between ourselves as to how we can progress the matter. I think one of the problems that we've had is that nearly everybody's files have accumulated dust over the last two years, your Honour, and trying to find some of the missing jigsaw pieces that are in existence, how would the Commission respond to the idea of perhaps an off the record conference of the parties to see - facilitated by yourself, that would allow us to sort of kick these issues around prior to charging ahead with any particular aspect of it?

PN89

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I'll give that some thought. I'll note the CPSU position, which I've read on to the record, and move now to the ALHMWU to hear what contribution its able to make to the situation. Ms Ilias.

PN90

MS ILIAS: Yes, your Honour, I was not present at the meeting last week with the employer groups. I did put in some apologies which was tabled at that meeting. Our position is similar to the NTEU and the CPSU in relation to the directions. I must just make for the record that I have not been involved in any of the processes in relation to this award, so our files are very dusty. And it's going to take considerable amounts of time to - as someone had previously said - put the jigsaw puzzle together to establish where we had got to in relation to the miscellaneous groups.

PN91

I would also support the thoughts of going into some type of conference to bandy around some of the issues prior to any other directions being made, your Honour.

PN92

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Very well, Ms Ilias. The trades group isn't represented this morning, is it?

PN93

MR BOWN: No.

PN94

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Well, before I do anything else, I might ask, Mr Bown, if you've got anything to say on the matter generally?

PN95

MR BOWN: No. I think I concur with - your Honour, I concur with most people in relation to the perhaps off-transcript discussions, but from Melbourne's perspective we do have a preference to go down the institutional award route. However, to not undermine the process, we're willing to continue down the simplification as per the draft directions we were looking at, and I think we agreed as a group, the higher education group meeting that we had last week. The only thing that Melbourne would wish for or seek in relation to this would perhaps to have a separate schedule which clearly distinguishes our terms and conditions in relation to some of those other universities which were covered or which had the basis of the patent award coverage where we were always the university general staff so there's no confusion for our staff.

PN96

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Yes, well, that would be a matter of detail, would it not, in the simplification process. Mr Blogg.

PN97

MR BLOGG: Yes, thank you, your Honour. I also concur in that we should go into conference. Monash University's stance is that they are not interested in pursuing the option of an institutional award at this present time.

PN98

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Is or is not interested?

PN99

MR BLOGG: Is not interested.

PN100

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I see. So that Monash could be added to the list of institutions which at the present time wish to stay with the HEW Vic Award.

PN101

MR BLOGG: That's correct, your Honour.

PN102

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Right, thanks, Mr Blogg. We'll go off the record.

OFF THE RECORD [9.46am

RESUMED [9.51am]

PN103

THE SENIOR DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I adjourn these proceedings to an off-the-record conference in Melbourne on 5 June 2003. The commencing time will be notified to the parties in due course. I adjourn this matter accordingly. I adjourn the Commission until 10.00 am.

ADJOURNED ACCORDINGLY [9.52am]