MERRY XMAS
A busy year, not yet done. We thank you for your support this year and we look forward to your support next year as we deal with negotiations for new EBAs and defend increasing attacks on our conditions. Merry Xmas.

SPF POST SHIFT SWAPS DISPUTE TO FWC
The continual refusal of the Manager to approve shift swaps cannot be accepted. We have lodged a dispute in the Fair Work Commission (FWC) seeking that swaps generally be approved. The EBA creates a right for employees to swap shifts, subject to approval of a manager.
The language of the EBA is clear . "An employee is allowed to exchange . shifts."
The manager must act reasonably when a worker exercises that right. When an employee exercises that right, and the manager refuses, the onus is on the manager to justify his position. A worker does not have to justify the swap to the manager.

SHIFT SWAPS - THE LAW
The Australia Post Enterprise Agreement 2017 (EBA) provides for shift swaps as follows:

19.5.1 Exchange of Shifts - An employee is allowed to exchange duties or shifts or days off, or to perform duty for another employee, with the approval of the manager.

SPF OVERTIME
Many members have complained at the failure of Post to comply with the overtime offer agreement reached in mediation. Post has not released actual overtime worked and the accuracy of offer tallies is being questioned. We are now due for a review and we will have that in January. We have also sought a meeting of all TTLs and ELs to determine the reason for the inconsistent application of the agreement. Post have agreed to this approach. We will advise further.

TELSTRA BUILDING CLEANING
While Telstra have begun to look at the issues, we have not received an update. Workers are not required to work where the conditions are a threat to health and safety. Edensor Park exchange is an example where a threat appears to exist. We received further reports that the exchange has no running water and the toilets have not been flushed.

OPTUS ANNUAL LEAVE
Following our letter to Optus stating that staff have found that they have applied for annual leave (ARL) on 25 Jan 2121, we received the following response:

There must be some confusion on your end, let me clarify this for you.
Employees were informed as early as September that we would be encouraging employees to take annual leave on 25 January 2021 to take advantage of a long weekend and at the same time, that it would be automatically loaded into HR Central for all employees except for certain roles supporting our customers.
I am not sure on what basis you say that Optus cannot pre-fill leave records - can you please provide an explanation.
As I have said previously and will continue to reinforce, we encourage and promote our team members to talk to their leaders directly. If they have concerns about taking leave as we have encouraged, discussions should be had directly with their leaders.

COMMENT RE OPTUS ANNUAL LEAVE
Many staff may wish to convert the Australia Day 2021 holiday into a long week-end. Some may wish to take ARL. Others may wish to have an RDO. However we strongly object to Optus simply putting you on annual leave. Members have reported that they are only finding out that they will be on annual leave (your application was pre filled by Optus) on Monday 25 January 2021. They report that they were not told that they would be put on leave.
Either way, we will object to the practice and will demand that Optus reverse applications made by Optus.
Optus did not respond to reports that this occurred over this Xmas.
Members are asked to advise me in confidence of their experience.

USEFUL QUICK LINKS Forced ARL Fact Sheet Forced LSL Fact Sheet Telstra EBA Notes Telstra EBA19 Telstra EBA19 Undertakings

Superannuation Fact Sheet Optus EBA18 Post EBA9 0428 942 878 dan.dwyer@cwunion.net Dan Dwyer Secretary/Lawyer - industrial matters & advice 0447 365 433 reception@cwunion.net Administrative eg payments, applications, change of details

Authorised by Dan Dwyer Branch Secretary
CWU Telecommunications & Services Branch, Sydney City, NSW.