The cost of living is always on the rise, and is often an unforgiving toll on the ability of our members and their families to meet their financial obligations. Whether it is the grocery bill, the petrol bill, or a family night out – everything is always going up.
Your Union is constantly looking for ways to ease the burden on our members’ hip pockets – both through bargaining better outcomes with your employer and through partnering with organisations, such as the Ambassador Card to enable access for members to significant discounts on every day necessities, along with life’s little enjoyments.
And today, we’re pleased to inform you that CEPU members in retail will, from 1 April, enjoy a significant improvement to important, staple allowances to cover the basic costs associated with performing their roles.
The cost of purchasing and replacing appropriate footwear is not immune from inflationary pressures and your Officials have been strongly advocating, for over 12 months now, seeking to improve the retail shoe allowance.
As a result of this persistent agitation by your Officials, members across the country will now be entitled to an improved footwear allowance of $128 per annum. This is now consistent with the allowances received by members in outdoor uniformed roles within Australia Post.
As part of these same discussions, your Officials advocated strongly for clarity and improvement to the Official Telephone Service (OTS) allowance – which was inconsistently applied across workplaces.
The terms of the new OTS allowance are now clearer than ever and appropriately offsets the costs associated with a member being required to be contactable outside of work hours.
A new allowance of $35 will be paid in any month a member, without a work-issued mobile phone, is required to be contactable outside of work hours. This value is benchmarked against the real cost of a Telstra pre-paid sim card inclusive of unlimited calls and SMS for one month.
I am incredibly proud of these outcomes and especially thank Branch Organiser Elly Huttly, supported by National Divisional Assistant Secretary Nicole Robinson, whose steadfast determination and persistent discussions with management over a considerably drawn out period have delivered this significant improvement for CEPU retail members across the country.
Should you require any advice or information relating to your workplace allowances in retail, please contact Branch Organiser Elly Huttly on (02) 9893 7822.
Yours faithfully,
SHANE MURPHY
BRANCH SECRETARY
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