IN THE TASMANIAN INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION

Industrial Relations Act 1984

This application by the Association of Draughting Supervisory and Technical Employees, Tasmanian Branch (ADSTE) is for the making of the Draughting and Technical Officers (Private Industry) Award.

The application for this award was made consequential to a declaration1 made by the President where he determined inter alia as follows:

FINDING:

After considering the views expressed by Mr. Baker and Mr. Brotherson, I have decided to accede to Mr. Baker's request. But in doing so I must point out that any award to be made by consent or by arbitration will, among other things, need to be consistent with the Association's "Conditions of Eligibility Rule" filed in the Registry. Furthermore, the "first award" principle must also apply. And of course any award to be made must contain the required commitment to the current wage fixing principles. Care should also be exercised in drafting a set of conditions of employment bearing in mind the first award requirements.

DECLARATION:

Subject to those qualifications and in accordance with the requirements of Section 33(2) of the Act, I find that the occupations of Drafting Officer, Production Planner and Technical Officer are occupations in which employees are employed in private industry, and accordingly I declare that these are occupations in respect of which the Commission may make an award.

Having regard to the foregoing, Mr Baker appearing for ADSTE and Mr Brotherson appearing for the Tasmanian Confederation of Industries informed the Commission in .these proceedings that extensive negotiations had taken place between their respective organisations culminating in a draft award as reflected in exhibit ADSTE 1.

The draft award is an amalgum of conditions of employment drawn from the Mechanical Engineers and Founders Award, the Metal Industry Award 1984 - Part 2 Draughtsmen, Production Planners and Technical Officers and the Surveyors (Private Industry) Award.

Whilst some modifications are required to be made by the parties to the proposed award, I confirm in this interim decision that I am satisfied the draft award submitted for endorsement of the Commission complies with all of the requirements of the "first award" principle.

The modifications required to be made by the parties relate to fine tuning definitions for the classifications contained in the award; the revision of the wage rates clause to separately identify rates of pay for each of the classifications (removal of combined rates for classifications where a slash is shown to distinguish between the classifications in that clause); consistency of terminology; deletion of references to the Secretary for Labour; right of entry of union officials to reflect the requirements of the Industrial Relations Act 1984 and the redrafting of the Superannuation clause to define "ordinary time earnings". Also where contributions are made to other than the nominated fund i.e. TASPLAN, this will require the endorsement of the Commission. On that issue I support the proposal that those employers already making contributions to a fund as a result of what has been determined in the awards from which this proposed award is derived, be set out in the Superannuation clause without the need for any further action beyond that.

However those employers not already making contributions and who will be required to do so from the first full pay period to commence on or after 1 December 1989, following the making of the award, and who do not wish to be party to the nominated fund (TASPLAN) should seek exemption by way of application to the Commission.

The parties have indicated that they will attend to all of these outstanding matters to enable the making of the Draughting and Technical Officers (Private Industry) Award following resumption of hearing on the specified date.

R.K. Gozzi
COMMISSIONER

1 T.1672 of 1988