Commission determines Maitland - Newcastle CSO dispute
The Fair Work Commission handed down a decision on 9 January 2019 concerning the long running dispute with Maitland-Newcastle CSO about the terms and conditions of 35 staff who were transferred from the CSO to Shared Services.
The case was brought by the Union on behalf of members affected by the reduction in their working conditions as a result of the transfer. The CSO advised employees that the existing Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Schools Office Enterprise Agreement2017 (CSO EA) no longer applied to the transferring staff. As a result staff lost conditions such as long service leave, personal/carer's leave and redundancy pay and were entitled to reduced paid parental leave.
Unfortunately the Commission held in the January decision that the CSO EA did not continue to apply to staff who transferred to Shared Services. The Commission also declined to vary the CSO EA to remove an ambiguity or uncertainty in the application of the EA to ensure the EA continued to apply.
This decision was based on technical legal argument, not the fairness or otherwise of whether or not the EA should continue to apply. Indeed, the Commission referred to the "inherent unfairness" of the fact that the EA would no longer apply to employees who had voted for it. The Commission also referred to the "oddity" of the fact that the EA would not apply because there was an administrative restructure but would have continued to apply had the employees been outsourced to a separate company.
The Commission stated that the undertaking by the Bishop in August 2017 that employees would not be disadvantaged by the transfer to Shared Services could not be used in interpreting the CSO EA if this was not the effect of the EA itself.
The Union is obviously disappointed in this outcome.
The Union will be in contact with members more broadly in coming weeks to discuss the next step.
