Review PUBLIC
SECTOR
www.cpsu.asn.au
August 2011
Restoring Trust Former Treasurer, Kevin Foley destroyed “good faith” in negotiations for future enterprise agreements the day he moved to cut agreed rights and entitlements by law rather than through the enterprise bargaining process. In his last Budget, when he slashed long service leave, cut leave loading and threatened job security, he also drastically undermined the whole basis of good faith negotiations. By destroying that process – by stripping away rights and entitlements agreed to by the Government only months before, and finalised in an Enterprise Agreement that was certified by the Industrial Relations Commission, he created a significant problem for future negotiations. Negotiations for the next EB are due to start early next year with an agreement due to commence during 2012. The PSA is giving consideration to how to approach any future negotiations, and examining future options. “Once you have a situation, where a union on behalf of its members has negotiated an agreement which is signed off by both sides, in good faith, under all applicable law, you would expect that to stand.” “What has happened is that the Government, a few months later, decided to turn its back on that agreement and its employees and literally change the rules. “Only a Government as an employer can
do this, and it raises very serious questions about the validity and worth of any future agreements made with any Government.” The manner in which the Government chose to legislate away agreed working rights and entitlements is the subject of a PSA High Court challenge. The outcome of that challenge will inevitably have a bearing on how future negotiations are conducted. Alternatives to the previous Enterprise Agreement process may involve arbitration by the Industrial Relations Commission to achieve legally binding outcomes, and to allow for consideration of the value of lost entitlements.. This would be a time consuming and adversarial approach, but would result in a legally binding Award. Also, arbitration may be a means of applying a value to specific entitlements and can be proven to have a value – that is, if elements of an overall agreed package (e.g. tenure) are removed, compensation is required. Arbitration, unlike an Enterprise Agreement, does not require the consent of the employer to the outcome. The case of Executives who have given up tenure in return for a 10-15% pay increase shows that the Government has previously placed a value on tenure. This is worth noting, given the fact the Government has stated that it will not guarantee tenure beyond 2014. “The change in Government leadership
may have an impact on relations and potential negotiations.” “There’s a long way to go though. A lot of
trust has been lost, and at this stage the PSA is not happy to begin any negotiations until that trust has been restored.”
Public Support for Public Sector A majority of South Australians have a positive view of the work performed by the Public Sector, new research shows. And many would be happier to see taxes rise, rather than services and jobs cut. The research was conducted by Dr James Whelan, Public Service Research Director of the Centre for Policy Development.
He found that despite many politicians making “a sport of kicking public servants” the community has “positive attitudes towards the public service and would like to see a strong, healthy and sustained service”. Dr Whelan’s research looked at 20 years of attitudinal surveys and found that, consistently throughout that time, people wanted to see services well funded.
“In fact, one of the interesting findings was that when people were asked if they wanted to pay more tax in order to increase the funding available for public services, like health and education and so on, the majority of Australians supported that,” he said in a media interview. Dr Whelan said that an examination of
commentary on the Public Sector contained in Hansard, the official record of Parliament, revealed that three quarters was negative or derogatory. “It’s really curious to contrast the attitudes expressed by politicians towards the public service, and attitudes of the general community.”
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