The Water Workers Unions all submitted on the Water Services Amendment Bill and have subsequently met with government policy teams to give further advice on the impact the changes may have on the workforce. All Unions acknowledged the need for change in the water services sector, and we support the Government’s reforms to bring about much-needed change. We were supportive of the model contained in the Water Services Entities Act 2022, and saw benefits in the economies of scale created by four Water Services Entities (WSEs).
We acknowledge that the move from four WSEs to ten aims to strike a balance between economies of scale and local voice. The shift to ten WSEs with staggered starting dates does, however, create some challenges for the transition process for workers.
Union submissions focused on the need to create rules to allow bargaining to commence for all entities as soon as possible. We also focused of the need to support training and development of staff during the extended implementation period. We are concerned that existing employers will see this as an easy way of cutting costs for a workforce that will not be their responsibility after the entities are “stood up”.
Similarly, Unions worry about the extended timeframe and a perception of uncertainty leading to valuable and experienced employees leaving the industry before the reforms are fully implemented. We believe it makes much more economic sense to pay people to stay now than go to the expense of recruiting and training new staff all over again in the future. For this reason, we are lobbying the government to support retention with a payment to existing staff who remain until after the new entities are established.
Read the submissions from the PSA (webpage), ETU and AWUNZ (PDF).