The Members United team says the current CPSU leadership has betrayed workers by accepting the government’s latest pay offer. Photo: Supplied.
The Federal Government’s latest wages offer for public servants has intensified the internal fight for leadership positions in the Community and Public Sector Union, with accusations of betrayal being cast at the union’s incumbent bosses.
The Australian Public Service Commission delivered its final offer on APS wages this week by agreeing to bring forward the first pay rise instalment by 12 weeks.
The 11.2 per cent increase over three years remains the same, but the first year’s hike of 4 per cent would kick in from 21 December this year instead of 14 March next year.
Employees would only get this bonus if their agency’s enterprise agreement was finalised and given to them for consideration by 14 March 2024. It then must receive a successful vote.
It’s a deal the CPSU has not only backed but claims to have secured in the standoff over wages.
National secretary Melissa Donnelly says the union fought hard for the “bolstered APS pay offer” and numerous improved workplace conditions.
“This is a package that will deliver APS employees strong, industry-leading conditions, improved pay and a financial boost without delay,” she said.
“The union recommends the overall package, noting it will deliver strong conditions and improved pay without delays.”
The package is now before CPSU’s APS members for a vote. That poll will close at midday on Thursday, 30 November.
But the CPSU is in the middle of another ballot, this one for the union’s national executive positions.
Grassroots breakaway campaigners inside the CPSU – calling themselves Members United – say the team led by Ms Donnelly has betrayed the union membership by recommending the new offer.
Members United points out that the revised offer is largely unchanged from the previous one, which the CPSU rejected.
“Sector-wide bargaining was supposed to give us the power to reverse a decade of wage cuts and protect members in the cost-of-living crisis,” Members United candidate Bella Devine-Poulos said.
“By recommending a below-inflation deal to the membership, the Melissa Donnelly Team are betraying our industrial strategy and the strike actions already planned.”
MU’s Will Mudford, who is campaigning for Ms Donnelly’s job, went even further and described it as the “ultimate betrayal” of the CPSU membership by its current leadership.
He said with 11.2 per cent being around half the CPSU’s original claim of 20 per cent over three years, the union should instead escalate industrial action against the government to win a better deal.
“If the CPSU leadership can’t protect their members’ standard of living, they simply aren’t doing their jobs. They’ve failed on every measure,” he said.
“What we can win is directly proportional to how hard we fight. This offer won’t help workers struggling with the essentials.
“The Melissa Donnelly Team are totally out of touch. Members United will fight, and we care because we don’t just represent public servants, we are public servants.”
The current CPSU leadership said the additional payment offered is the equivalent of 0.92 per cent of an employee’s salary.
In Services Australia, they noted that this amounts to $724 for an APS4, $933 for an APS6, and $1119 for an EL1.
Employees would receive this payment as a lump sum as soon as possible after a successful enterprise agreement ballot and not have to wait for Fair Work Commission approval of the EA, due to the expected timing of agency ballots.
The union is now running a member poll where every CPSU member in the APS can vote on the revised APS-wide package. The poll will close at midday on Thursday, 30th November.
The last CPSU membership poll saw 52 per cent of members vote in favour of the pay package, but the union made a call to reject the offer and increase industrial action.
However, MU members said the union should have been negotiating even harder for a better pay deal, but it was going soft because of the CPSU’s affiliation with the Australian Labor Party.
A postal ballot underway for CPSU national executive positions, mailed to more than 42,000 members, closes on 6 December.
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