First single bargaining meeting with government held today

The Public Service Association attended the first Single Bargaining Centre meeting for the start of negotiations for a successor agreement to the South Australian Modern Public Sector Enterprise Agreement: Salaried 2017 today.

The first meeting was used to establish a timetable of future meetings for negotiations. No claims were tabled by the PSA or the Government. The Government representatives indicated they are looking to be in a position to provide the government’s negotiating agenda at the first meeting to be held next year, 15 January 2020.

PSA General Secretary Nev Kitchin gave the following statement at the meeting.

The PSA welcomes the commencement of salaried enterprise bargaining today. 

As the principal public sector union, the PSA is prepared to negotiate in good faith with the aim of reaching agreement within a reasonable time frame.

The PSA has been consulting widely with our members about their enterprise agreement and will continue to do so.

Members are telling us the most important things to them are:

• Job protection
• Protection from, and processes to deal with, unreasonable workloads
• Maintaining their current conditions of employment
• Maintaining our effective redeployment systems and processes
• A fair and reasonable wage outcome that takes some pressure off our members from the ever increasing fees, charges and cost of living they endure

These key areas form the foundation of our approach and expectations for this round of enterprise bargaining. 

Consistent with the last round of negotiations, our object remains the achievement of clear, equitable, fair, consistent and enforceable provisions in a single enterprise agreement that deals with the issues members have identified as being important to them.

The PSA will be seeking to maintain and improve enterprise agreement provisions that will be unambiguous in their interpretation and application, irrespective of the Department or Agency in which an employee works.

The current agreement – the product of an extensive review conducted by the PSA and subsequent negotiations with government - has benefited PSA members and the government alike.

We have the reasonable expectation that government will engage in negotiations appropriately, in good faith, with properly authorised negotiators, and will conduct negotiations in a respectful and timely manner.

Our intention for today is to set up regular meetings for negotiations in the New Year.

The PSA will continue to consult with PSA members as issues arise. We are expecting members to continue to contribute their valuable feedback while negotiations are progressing.

We look forward to achieving an enterprise agreement which meets our members' needs and expectations.

Enterprise Bargaining Member Engagement

As General Secretary Nev Kitchin stated at the meeting, the PSA is continuing our consultation with members on what is important to them in the next enterprise agreement. PSA Organisers are holding worksite meetings, and the PSA Member Enterprise Bargaining Survey is still open for feedback.

PSA members will continue to be kept up to date with enterprise bargaining by the PSA office as negotiations continue.