We tackled some important issues in our fifth bargaining meeting with Parkside.

During the meeting, Parkside proposed to extend ordinary working hours from 6am – 7pm, Monday to Friday, to 6am – 8pm, Monday to Sunday. This essentially means they want the flexibility to call upon you to work during these hours at any time.

We stood firm in opposition to this and insisted on maintaining the current ordinary working hours. While it's absolutely acceptable for workers to pick up after-hours and weekend shifts (and many of you may want to), they shouldn’t be forced upon those who prefer not to work during those times. Equally crucial is our claim for Parkside to increase your Sunday pay rate to double time.

We also argued that there should not be any reduction in existing on-call rates.

Parkside’s wages offer is underwhelming. They only offered to raise wages in line with the mandatory minimum. With inflation and cost of living pressures running riot, you deserve the security of a negotiated percentage increase.

While Parkside indicated they would provide a draft agreement, we're still waiting. This delay has left us concerned that there will be the devil in the details. We’ll update you on which of our claims has been agreed upon once we have the draft.

We've also made it clear to Parkside that if they want to avoid transitioning from the existing agreement to the Modern Award and then to a new agreement, they must lodge an application to the FWC to extend the life of the current agreement. They've said they will do this, but we have yet to see the application. We'll be keeping a close eye on this and holding them to their word.

Stay tuned for our next update. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us through HACSUassist on 1300 880 032 or at assist@hacsu.org.au