Opposition to the Tasmanian Government's bid to freeze public sector wages for a year is growing in the Upper House ahead of a crucial vote this week.
The development comes as unions make a last-ditch effort to persuade the State Government to re-think its pay freeze bill.
Independent MP Adriana Taylor is the latest Upper House member to speak out against the bill.
Ms Taylor said she understood the Government needed to make savings, but said the role of the independent Industrial Commission in setting wages needed to be protected.
"It's really dead foolish to destroy that system by going outside of that," she said.
Unions wrote to Premier Will Hodgman last Friday to demand a meeting to negotiate the pay freeze.
Mr Hodgman's chief of staff, Brad Stansfield, rejected the request, accusing the unions of failing to put forward alternatives.
The bill is not about a wage freeze, it's about changing the industrial relations system in Tasmania forever.
Tom Lynch, Community and Public Sector Union
The Community and Public Sector Union's secretary, Tom Lynch, said the legislation was unnecessary because the one-year pay freeze could be achieved through negotiation.
"What it wouldn't do is trample on the industrial relations system, it wouldn't trample on 100 years of negotiations," he said.
"But clearly the Government don't want to do that because the bill is not about a wage freeze, it's about changing the industrial relations system in Tasmania forever."
The Legislative Council will consider the wage freeze legislation this week.
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