NSW public servants win pay deal
By Jenny Long
On June 17, the Public Service Association executive lifted the bans imposed by statewide stop-works the Friday before, after the government offered to negotiate on a promised 4% pay rise. Two days later, the union leadership announced success in negotiations for the first 2%, due on July 1.
The 4% pay rise was the "productivity" component of a 16% pay deal agreed between the state Labor government and the PSA last year.
The government claimed last month that the productivity gains necessary to pay the 4%, due in two 2% installments in July 1998 and January 1999, had not been made and the rises would therefore not be paid.
The June 17 stop-works adopted a range of actions, including bans on telephone inquiries and revenue collection, and a strike on July 10. Unionists in some departments were able to implement the bans quickly and effectively, and the government was soon pressured into negotiations.
Unionists working in state parliament placed a picket line on Parliament House, throwing Labor politicians, especially those nominally from the "left", into a dither, and industrial relations minister Jeff Shaw was quickly put in charge of negotiations in place of officials from the Premier's Department and the Public Sector Management Office.
On June 19, the PSA, led by officials also in the Labor Party, announced that the government had agreed to pay the first 2%; an application to vary the award by consent between the parties will be heard in the state Industrial Relations Commission on June 22.
The second 2% is still the subject of negotiations, with a union-imposed deadline of the end of August set for the resolution of that pay rise.