Central Coast Council financial crisis: Union weighs in to protect staff, jobs and services
A shock late night email on Tuesday left more than 2000 Central Coast Council staff members wondering if they would have money to pay the mortgage/rent and feed their families.
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It was 9.55pm on Tuesday night when an email was sent to Central Coast council staff advising them that they may not be paid this week.
For many are up early, they didn’t get the news until Wednesday morning – the day they were expecting pay in their bank accounts.
United Services Union organiser (Central Coast) Luke Hutchinson said his phone was ringing hot first thing Wednesday morning.
“The calls were ‘how will we put food on the table?’ and ‘how will we pay our rent or mortgages this week?’. There was complete and utter shock and frustration. What a mess the situation was for these workers,” he told the Express Advocate .
Around 80 per cent of council staff are with the USU which has been working non-stop to make sure council staff are paid this week and into the future.
Mr Hutchinson met with council’s acting chief executive officer Jamie Loader first thing Wednesday who indicated that unless council got permission to tap into restricted funds, staff would not be paid.
The USU then lodged an urgent dispute with the Industrial Relations Commission to avoid strike action. They met with Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock to point out that council staff had to be paid and not punished for council’s poor financial management.
Soon after Ms Hancock announced that the State Government would give council $6.2m to pay staff and in the same breath announced she would suspend the mayor and councillors.
“Thankfully the Minister listened to our concerns,” Mr Hutchinson said.
“The money has gone in and everyone was paid as per normal. We are also confident the government will continue its support and not allow workers to go without wages.”
He said council’s average staff payroll each week is $3.9m with it being one of the largest employers in the region.
“This issue touches very single member of our community,” he said.
“We will continue to work with whatever body we need to protect the jobs and vital community services.
“As far as the workers and community are concerned, everyone needs answers. How did this happen? We need to get to where ground zero is.”
To add further insult to council staff, many workers are being insulted by the public while working.
“There has been situations in the community with our members wearing high vis shirts,” Mr Hutchinson said.
“Some of these workers fixing water and sewerage issues are being abused over these failures of management. These people are trying to do their jobs, they are worried about their pay and they are copping it from some parts of the community. Some people need to realise that these workers have nothing to do with the management of council and are just doing their jobs.”
He said the current message for staff is “we will work through it”.
“The community deserves better,” he said. “Let’s stand together and work through these matters. There will be a way through. We are going to do everything possible to protect jobs and services.
“I never thought I’d see a situation in local government where they are unable to pay workers. It’s unprecedented.”
He said the union had asked council questions around temporary employee numbers, contractors and money for major projects over the past few months, however had not received responses.