CPSU VOTES FOR INDUSTRIAL ACTION TO CHANGE ABBOTT GOVT BARGAINING POSITION

SEP 19, 2014

Public sector union leaders have voted unanimously to escalate their campaign against the Abbott Government’s harsh bargaining position to include protected industrial action.

Public servants are increasingly worried and angry at the Government’s hostile and negative bargaining position which the union argues is threatening jobs, pay, rights and conditions.

After months of negotiation in more than 70 agencies not one government agency has been able to present an acceptable agreement to its staff, the Community and Public Sector Union’s Governing Council was told.

CPSU National Secretary Nadine Flood said: “The Government is targeting important rights that public sector workers have built up over decades including superannuation, fair wages and decent conditions. Today we say no. We will not accept cuts to the rights and conditions of 165,000 public sector workers.”

“We are asking 165,000 government workers to come together to protect their jobs, their rights, their conditions and their future. Taking industrial action is a last resort and we would prefer to resolve this issue at the bargaining table. But this Government is refusing to sit down with us to try and find a sensible outcome. Instead it has chosen to attack public servants and the CPSU.

According to the union, the decision taken by CPSU Governing Councillors today means industrial action is now more likely.

“This is not a step we have taken lightly but reflects the growing concern among  public servants because of the Government’s hard-line stance,” Ms Flood said.

“We remain willing to talk but we have had nothing from this Government and Minister Abetz is refusing to meet. Today workers have taken an important step and have shown they are prepared to use protected industrial action to make the Government see sense and change their harsh and aggressive bargaining position.

“We didn’t pick this fight, but it is a fight we will have, and it is a fight we will win,” Ms Flood said.

The CPSU Governing Council voted  to endorse ‘the use of protected industrial action that is consistent with the provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009, mobilising workers and commencing preparations to allow members to take protected industrial action that is required to protect their rights.’

The industrial action could take the form of work bans, stoppages, strikes and a range of other campaign activities.