Federal public service workers in Services Australia, incorporating Centrelink, went on strike for 24 hours on October 9 in support of their claim for an improved pay offer from the federal Labor government.
Members of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) have launched a series of agency-wide industrial actions after the latest government offer was supported by just 51%.
The CPSU rejected the revised pay offer — a meagre 0.7% rise on the first offer of 10.5% over three years. Both offers “failed to garner clear support from union members”, the CPSU said.
“There is broad support for the conditions’ package that has been negotiated, but consensus across the CPSU’s membership is that the Albanese Labor government can and should do better on pay.”
CPSU national secretary Melissa Donnelly said: “The Albanese Labor government made a commitment to the public service … to become a model employer and to rebuild the APS [Australian Public Service] after a decade of damage and destruction.
“We have a unique opportunity, with service-wide bargaining, to negotiate a package that brings together 160,000 employees across 103 different agencies after what has been an incredibly challenging decade for public sector workers. But an offer with 51 per cent support doesn’t do that.”
The CPSU said it rejected this offer because “we should be aiming higher than 50 per cent, plus one”.
It said there is “strong support” for the negotiated conditions package, including working from home rights, more paid parental leave, the reintroduction of job security provisions and greater casual loading rates.
But it said every APS worker is “feeling extreme cost of living pressures” and the current pay offer is inadequate.
“Our members are ready to increase pressure as needed to secure a better outcome on pay.”
Donnelly said union members in Services Australia took 24-hour strike action and protected action ballots were being lodged in other workplaces, including the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry and the Fair Work Ombudsman.