It’s come to our attention that a ‘draft EA’ has been floating around some of the Radiology
Tasmania sites and it’s come as a bit of a surprise to some of you. We’re surprised too given that
there are still so many outstanding issues that we haven’t agreed with Capitol on.
While it’s not unusual for the employer to start the drafting process early when it comes to your
prospective EA, usually this document is worked on, and claims are added and written into draft
clauses when they’re agreed upon. We’ve got no issue if your employer wants to show you a very
early draft of the EA, but there’s a few things that are important for you to know about this draft.
One is that it’s a draft – it might sound obvious, but nothing has been approved and it also omits
lots of the issues we’ve been pressing Capitol on at the bargaining table. Even this week Capitol
are updating the draft, so the copy that may be floating around will be far from the end version.
Based on the conversations we’ve had with members about their offer as it stands, there’s still a
lot that we’re not in agreement about. You might remember some of these, but they include:
• Capitol only wanting to provide you the bare minimum for almost all leave entitlements,
including no increases to sick or annual leave.
• The issue of backpay: while it’s true that Capitol don’t have to pay you backpay or
backdate entitlements, it’s also rare that an employer is hard-hearted enough to remove
this in bargaining. However, from what they’ve said to us, Capitol have indicated that they want to take
backpay off the table altogether. We think this is completely unfair – especially given that
we know they have the means to pay it with the money they’ve saved on missed pay rises.
As your union we’d advise you not to vote up anything that removes backpay if it goes
out to a vote anytime soon.
• Wage increases: in a letter from their expensive mainland-based lawyer, Capitol claimed
that they’re giving you an increase of 11.8% over the life of the Agreement. If you don’t
dig any deeper this looks great – the issue is that in the first year increases you’ll merely
be catching up with the wage increases that you were owed (that they’re supposed to be
paying) and with current market rates at competitors like I-MED, particularly in the
radiography stream.
The administrative stream looks more troubling again, because the increases in the draft
aren’t lining up with what they’re claiming. We have real issues with the fairness and
equity in how they’ve worked this out.
The subsequent years also only see you getting 2%. In this economic environment this is
not something that we could ever foresee you stomaching. Basically, Capitol are trying to
starve you into accepting a very ordinary deal.
Outside of the Agreement, there’s still the issue of missed pay rises for some of the longer-standing staff who were contractually owed CPI increases. Please reach out to us if this is you.
We’ve had some success in getting members’ rates upped to what they should be from
missed increases and we want to see this extended to everyone who is eligible.
Even though their draft leaves a lot to be desired, there is good news – because the power
rests with you.
The fact is that this draft can’t be put into action without members like you approving it, and
as the offer stands, we’d be seriously advising you not to consider passing it until these issues
can get resolved and your voices are listened to.
If you’ve got
questions or need more information, please get in touch on
1300 880 032 or
on
[email protected]