Neami National staff have voted overwhelmingly to endorse the new Neami National Enterprise Agreement negotiated and recommended by the ASU’s National Negotiating Team.
Voting on the Agreement closed last week – and 92% of employees who voted, voted in favour of the Agreement.
This is not surprising, as the Agreement contains some great provisions like stronger redeployment rights, better entitlements for workers who do sleepover shifts, easier access to flexible work arrangements and paid family violence leave. Plus employees will get annual wage increases, and will be able to pursue a reclassification.
This agreement is a credit to the hard work of the ASU national negotiating team and ASU members who pursued their claims and wouldn’t take ‘no’ from management for an answer!
What next?
Neami and the ASU will prepare documentation to be lodged in the Fair Work Commission. The Agreement commences 7 days after it is approved by the Fair Work Commission. We will keep you updated as to the approval process.
What about backpay?
The ASU has told management that the new pay rates and your backpay should be paid straightaway, without having to wait for the Agreement to be approved by the Fair Work Commission. Neami has refused this, and will instead apply the pay increase 7 days after the Agreement is approved by the Fair Work Commission.
However we have been able to negotiate that if any employees leave Neami by reason of redundancy prior to the Agreement being approved, they will be paid the backpay as well (including on the redundancy payment).
Employees will get your pay increase backpaid on the wages earned from 1 July 2018 until the date the Agreement takes effect. We will keep members updated as to the progress of the approval of the Agreement by the Fair Work Commission.
There are some new entitlements under this agreement. The ASU will only be providing assistance with accessing these entitlements to ASU members. If you are not yet a member you can join here: https://www.asu.asn.au/asujoin
If you have any queries, contact your local delegate or organiser: (download the full bulletin below for details) 
Neami Bulletin - 8 August 2018