Fair Work Commission will meet to review award

A four yearly review of the Children’s Services Award 2010 will take place in Sydney next week, 9 November 2018, on the back of substantive issues in relation to the award as raised in Mentions held 22 October 2018, to vary the Children’s Services Award.

 

There was general agreement that some of the substantive claims were complex and that there was a degree of overlap with some of the matters being pursued in the Equal Remuneration proceedings.

 

United Voice submitted that the hearing of the claims should be held after the hearings in respect of the substantive claims in the Aged Care Award 2010 and the Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010.

 

The parties agreed to give further consideration to the overlap between the claims in this matter and those in the Equal Remuneration proceedings and how that issue is to be handled.

 

United Voice Australia, Australian Childcare Alliance, Australian Business Industrial and the New South Wales Business Chamber, Business SA, and two individuals were represented at the Mention on 22 October 2018, where they provided further clarification in relation to the claims they intend to pursue, namely:

 

United Voice seek to vary the award by:  

• introducing a training allowance;  
• inserting a note under the clothing and equipment allowance clause regarding on site laundry facilities;  
• inserting the words “hat, sun protection (including sunscreen lotions)” into the clothing and equipment allowance clause;  
• deleting the higher duties clause or alternatively, amending it to remove the words “(including in-service training)”;  
• reducing the maximum amount of leave without pay for a Christmas close down from 4 to 2 weeks;  
• introducing the following allowances: a weekly allowance for an employee appointed as an educational leader; an hourly allowance for a responsible person physically present at a child care centre; a programming and administrative tasks allowance for children service employees that are required to perform additional programming and administrative duties in addition to their rostered hours; and  amending the non-contact time clause by extending non-contact time to 8 hours per week.

 

The Australian Childcare Alliance, Australian Business Industrial and the New South Wales Business Chamber seek to vary the award by:

 

• amending the ordinary hours of work and the rostering clause to provide employers with greater flexibility to change rosters other than with 7 days’ notice and;
• to allow ordinary hours to be worked before 6.00 am or after 6.30 pm.

 

An Individual confirmed in their submission of 19 April 2018 that they seek to vary the award by:

 

• including an Educational leadership allowance for employees with educational leadership responsibilities in early childhood education and care settings; and  
• including a Responsible Person allowance.

 

Business SA seek to vary the award by:  

 

• amending the casual employment clause by removing the restriction on employing casuals for temporary and relief purposes

 

The full transcript of the mentions can be found here.