BY PAUL OBOOHOV
CANBERRA — The corporate media on January 14 and 15 denounced new “flexible” leave conditions contained in the latest industrial agreement for employees of the federal Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST).
The agreement, certified in December, provides for: the conversion of 12 weeks' maternity leave into 24 weeks at half pay; an extra eight weeks of unpaid annual leave (with pay for the remaining work weeks averaged out over the whole year); one week of paid paternity leave; six weeks of paid adoption leave; and an extra five days off for working nine minutes more per day.
Parents working during school holidays can obtain $10 per day per child, up to a maximum of $100 a week, towards approved school holiday programs. Similar or even better agreements have been achieved recently by employees working in the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory public services and a few other federal departments.
DEST workers will only receive a 12% pay rise over three years, which is tied to the employees' commitment to achieving the government's agenda of corporatising education.
Most comment related to the supposedly “generous” leave entitlements in the agreement. ACTU President Sharan Burrow waxed lyrical about these new “benchmarks” for “family friendly workplaces for the 21st century”. The ACTU will use the agreement as an example in its family and work test case to be lodged later this year.
Acting family and community services minister Larry Anthony agreed that since many of the “add-ons” had been achieved through salary sacrifices, there was no additional cost to the government. However, he was quick to point out that this was a one-off deal, emphasising that “one size does not fit all”.
This echoes concerns by employers that the DEST leave provisions will spread to the private sector. In media statements, Garry Brack of Employers' First suggested that private employers would not come up with such concessions. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Peter Hendy said that work and family issues should be negotiated in individual workplaces and not be subject to national regulation. The Council of Small Business Organisations' Mike Potter claimed that small businesses could not afford similar leave arrangements.
The ALP's shadow minister for family services Wayne Swan said the “[DEST] benefits are unobtainable by 90% of the Australian work force... We need a government which will support family friendly workplaces for the many, not the few.”
Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) national secretary Adrian O'Connell described the comments by employer organisations on the DEST agreement as a “furphy”. He said that the extra leave provisions were “fair rather than generous”. Brack was wrong to suggest that the private sector could not afford similar conditions, O'Connell said.
O'Connell added that he was unsure how many public servants in other departments would want to “purchase back” their leave, but expected it would be popular in areas with a majority of female employees.
The January 14 Australian editorial pointed to a likely problem: “Salary sacrifice is a solution that will best suit workers on higher salaries... For many families who need two full-time incomes to manage, the idea of trading pay for additional weeks off will be an appealing but unaffordable luxury.”
This is a real concern in DEST, with 13% of staff at or below an annual $40,000 gross income.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, January 22, 2003.
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