Union preparations for the upcoming CSIRO pay negotiations continue to build, with Staff Association members set to undertake a series of bargaining claim endorsement meetings across the country throughout February and March.
Endorsed by national representatives elected to the union’s Section Council, the bargaining claim is the Staff Association’s principles-based, starting position for negotiations; the product of a six-month development effort involving thousands of unique contributions of union members and CSIRO employees from workplaces all over Australia.
With the current enterprise agreement due to expire in mid-November, the Staff Association is thoroughly prepared for the commencement of enterprise agreement negotiations at CSIRO. Put simply, we’re ready to bargain.
The development of the union claim started with a snap poll last September to determine early campaign priorities, followed by a comprehensive bargaining survey in October and a national series of workplace meetings in November to dissect and discuss the results.
Now, Staff Association members are invited to attend a local workplace meeting to review and endorse the union’s bargaining claim, ahead of the commencement of formal enterprise agreement negotiations with CSIRO Executive.
While the claim endorsement meetings are open to all CSIRO employees, non-members will be asked to join the union to attend and participate. As a democratic organisation, only Staff Association members determine the union’s bargaining strategy.
The bargaining claim is a principles-based document that sets out the Staff Association’s starting point for negotiations and the union’s overall enterprise agreement campaign objectives.
The principles include:
Last September’s snap poll showed that achieving a decent pay rise was the top priority of more than eight hundred CSIRO employees for the upcoming bargaining round.
More than fifty per cent (53.6%) of participants said getting a decent pay rise was their first priority, with nearly a third of respondents (32%) selecting pay as the premier issue across their top three selections.
In addition to pay, CSIRO employees nominated job security and safe workloads as issues for priority focus during enterprise agreement negotiations.
That focus on pay was also reflected in the results of the union’s member-only bargaining survey, which involved nearly 850 respondents throughout October.
Staff Association members were asked to select a preferred annual pay outcome (over a three-year agreement) with support for:
When asked to rank their motivation for seeking a decent pay rise at CSIRO, staff nominated cost of living (69.3%), narrowing the gap with research sector salaries (65.2%) and the need to attract and retain talent (66.2%) as the main drivers.