Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week in the adjournment debate in this chamber the member for Paterson launched a vicious attack on Gary Kennedy, secretary of the Newcastle Trades Hall Council. I now seek to set the record straight. Due to the ongoing decline in business, the Newcastle Panthers, formerly the Workers Club, looked at forming a joint venture partnership in the cleaning and catering area. This information was given to all catering staff and there was a meeting on 9 May this year at both the Newcastle and Cardiff clubs. Remaining staff were paid to attend this meeting and also to attend another meeting. The union, the LHMU, was present and the consultative committee, which was established on the same day, consisted of staff and union and non-union management.

The club needed to restructure and wanted to get between nine and 11 redundancies. The consultants worked with the consultative committee and called for expressions of interest. Twenty-nine expressions of interest were received and, despite the cost, the club decided that it would accept those expressions of interest. There were many long-serving members of staff who were allowed to exit the business. They wanted to go for various reasons. Two managerial positions disappeared, and they were forced redundancies. Two senior staff took packages, and in both cases they were subject to a deed of agreement. Every staff member who took a redundancy volunteered and was paid their full award entitlements. The process took place from 24 February until late July this year.

There was an agreement that the joint venture partners undertook to transfer employees on terms no less favourable than those on which they were currently employed. Prior to the date of the agreement, the club delivered on the JUP, a document setting out full details in respect of each transferring employee. The value of a proportion of their annual leave was transferred to a trust account and long service leave was treated similarly. Any change of employer contemplated by this agreement was not constituted as severance; it was constituted continuity of employment. The employees could transfer back to the club. It was quite a different picture to the one that was portrayed by the member for Paterson. It was a win-win situation for employees. Those who wanted redundancy took it and got absolutely everything that they were entitled to. Those who wanted to stay on were assured that their conditions would not decline.

These are the main points I would like to go over. This involved consultation in conjunction with the union. There was a consultative committee. The business was looking for between nine and 11 redundancies, and 29 staff members said they wanted to avail themselves of a redundancy package. All 29 were accepted for redundancy, at great cost to the club. Two staff members were made redundant with a package which was subject to a deed of agreement. All award wages and entitlements were paid to all staff. All but two senior staff members volunteered. No wage earners were forcibly made redundant. No workers were sacked or threatened with the sack, and 17 new positions were created, resulting in new staff and promotion for existing staff.

The questions for Mr Baldwin are: exactly which staff were not given the full entitlements as per the current award? Why is the member raising this matter in the parliament six months after it was dealt with? Is he willing to raise in parliament the names of the workers who were unfairly treated? Is he now willing to take on the real issue of workers in the Hunter who have been unfairly dismissed or forced to accept AWAs? Will he now support the same type of deal that was negotiated for the LHMU members who still work at Panthers, including transfer of current award entitlements in transition of business, guarantee of award wages and conditions, safeguarding of worker employment entitlements and the right of return if the joint venture fails? Will he support any new worker who has an industrial problem? (Time expired)