Employment Department's wage offer 'trounced'

Date
    December 16, 2014
    Canberra Times

Public Service Minister Eric Abetz has warned there will be consequences after bureaucrats in his department rejected the government's wage policy in a landslide vote on Tuesday.

Nearly 1500 Education Department bureaucrats cast ballots on a wage offer of less than 0.5 per cent a year, with cuts to conditions and entitlements, with 1419 of the workers rejecting the deal and just 77 voting to accept.      

The vote was the first time an offer formulated under the government's tough bargaining policy had been put to to public servants and the trouncing at Employment, announced on Tuesday afternoon, will be noted with interest by management and staff at other departments and agencies.

Enterprise bargaining talks across the 160,000-strong public service are slowed or stalled as departmental bosses struggle to come up with deals that are tough enough to satisfy the bargaining framework imposed by the Abbott government.


Workers at the departments of Human Services and Veterans Affairs have already voted for industrial action in an attempt to force their employers to the bargaining table.

There is growing restlessness at the Australian Taxation Office and the Defence Department after more than 40,000 public servants working at the large agencies realised they would not even get a pay offer this year.      

In the wake of the vote at Employment on Tuesday, Senator Abetz said departmental staff voting no to an offer would not result in more generous terms being offered.

"Government employees and unions should be under no illusions about the consequences of voting no to new EBAs (enterprise bargaining agreements) under the government's bargaining framework," he said.

"The government has made it clear that voting no will not mean that departments will have any capacity to make more generous offers, as the framework will not be changing."

But the Community and Public Sector Union, which has about one-third of Employment staff on its books, said the ballot result sent a clear message to the Minister.

"The message from staff to the Minister is crystal clear: don't cut our conditions and real wages," CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood said.

"If Minister Abetz's own staff won't swallow such a terrible deal, then how can he expect the rest of the public service to do so?"      

A departmental spokesman said his bosses were disappointed at the outcome and that the offer was realistic and affordable.

"The department is disappointed with the ballot result," the spokesman said. "We considered the proposed enterprise agreement was a realistic and affordable offer to employees.

"We cannot make commitments which are not offset by savings.

"We will continue to work within the parameters of the government's bargaining policy and our internal operating budget."

Employment would have to begin picking up the pieces in the new year, the spokesman said.

"The department will now take time to consider the outcome, ahead of re-commencing bargaining meetings in the new year," he said.

"The department appreciates the importance of settling a new enterprise agreement, given there will be no backdated pay increases."

Poor national productivity growth popping it's head up again. One day, the message will sink in. While overall productivity continues to decline as it has done for about a decade and a half, expect more just like this to come.

Grappler Deep State Feller wrote on Dec 17^th, 2014 at 11:29am:


And don't realise that directly, or indirectly, they too will be affected.

crocodile wrote on Dec 17^th, 2014 at 10:41am:


Perhaps when 10% of them get retrenched the penny will drop.

I look forward to it.

The Liberals seem to just line up one after the next to try and prove that each is a bigger filthy grub than the others, So far it looks like they all win.

Dnarever wrote on Dec 17^th, 2014 at 4:53pm:


haven't you seen this played out many times before?  Union A wants X% pay rise which Company B says it cannot afford.  Eventually after strikes and mayhem Company B folds and awards X% rise and the next day sacks half of them.

in an environment of budget cuts and rising deficit and struggling economy, why don't they expect that pay rises might be harder to come by?  and when the PS is being trimmed, doesn't it make a lot more sense to be part of the solution rather than part of the retrenched problem??

their attitude demonstrates the problem rather well.

I wish them a speedy retrenchment.  Nobody will even notice.

longweekend58 wrote on Dec 17^th, 2014 at 5:07pm:


Take note, cods.
Nice one, eh???

longweekend58 wrote on Dec 17^th, 2014 at 5:07pm:


You may note that in this environment the politicians will still be taking their pay increases, management will still be looking for attractive bonuses and CEO's who get solutions like this pushed through will use their success to justify million dollar performance bonuses. The poor mug worker is the only one expected to carry the BS load.

The Liberals in this case are announcing 10's of thousands of retrenchments anyway irrespective of wage cuts and removal of working conditions - most of this has no economic relationship, it's purely dogma driven. Removing conditions is back door workchoices nothing more. Pay cut backs are the Liberals answer to everything and it is yet to ever work.