http://www.cpa.org.au/guardian/2014/1628/06-govt-offensive-on-public-sector.html
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has accused the federal government of duplicity after details of its new public sector enterprise bargaining policy were revealed to the union.
These details reveal that the government plans to start making radical cuts to the pay and conditions of 160,000 of its employees within weeks. These plans include:
- significant cuts to employment conditions and allowances
- all pay rises to be linked to trade-offs in conditions
- wage increases from between 0% to a maximum of 2.5% depending on employees accepting reduced rights and entitlements
- no central negotiations with the CPSU
- tightly directed control of what agencies are allowed to negotiate.
- CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood said “The Coalition government is telling us it is not ready to talk about bargaining, yet it appears it has all but drafted the fine print on a highly-aggressive policy to cut real wages, conditions and rights.
“Under this government’s approach, public sector workers are facing a double whammy. Firstly thousands of jobs are being cut and the remaining staff are being flogged harder to get the work done. Secondly, no-one is going to get a pay rise that keeps up with inflation, unless they agree to have their rights and conditions cut.
“As we saw with SPC Ardmona and Toyota, this government is more interested in having a political go at workers and unions than making fair and productive workplace agreements.
