Strike action is continuing across the federal public service as staff campaign for fair pay and conditions against the Abbott government's harsh attack on wages, jobs and rights. Most recently, public servants at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority have voted to strike, joining their colleagues at copyright agency IP Australia who voted in the first week of July to take industrial action.
Meanwhile, the 4500 staff at the Department of Agriculture will soon be voting on a management wage offer of 1.5%, with proposed cuts to leave entitlements and the axing of a $300 health and well-being allowance.
At Agriculture, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) is campaigning for a No vote on an enterprise agreement offer that the union says contains "cuts, cuts and more cuts".
The CPSU says that workers will lose their health allowance, face a harder time accessing personal and other leave, have penalty rates cut and lose time off in lieu and other entitlements.
CPSU organiser Leigh Hughes said: "Our members have consistently told us that keeping conditions are a priority for them, and a pay offer that is lower than projected inflation is not going to change their minds.
"It is now more than a year since the current agreement was meant to have been replaced, and two years since the last pay rise."
CPSU members are preparing to distribute up to a million leaflets to the public as part of the campaign for improved pay and conditions. Initially, the leaflets will be handed out to customers in Agriculture, Immigration and Border Force, Veterans Affairs and Defence contact areas, including international airports and ports. This action will spread to other public service departments in coming weeks.
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