Public servants will hold rally to demand more respect

QUEENSLAND public servants will hold a mass rally outside parliament next Tuesday to demand greater respect from the government they work for.

QUEENSLAND public servants will hold a mass rally outside parliament next Tuesday to demand greater respect from the government they work for.

The move comes after the public service union, Together, chose not to respond to the Public Service Commission's 2.2% pay offer, which would have been backdated to July 1, over three years.

Together secretary Alex Scott said the union had been negotiating for more than 2.35% increase and the offer was 0.15% less than a previous offer - which 75% of workers rejected - put directly to staff last November.

"We did not reply within the timeframe because it's impossible for us to get 60,000 public servants to consider this offer within less than a day of timeframe," he said on Monday.

"The level which this government is treating public servants has gone to a new low over the weekend.

"In a remarkable show of contempt for the public sector and for public servants, the Queensland government put a wages offer on Friday evening to workers requiring in principle agreement by 9am Monday morning.

"The Premier is continually talking about the need for hardworking public servants to get a pay rise, but what they are doing is continually making sure that they put every obstacle they can in the way of the industrial commission handing down a fair and reasonable increase."

Mr Scott said the union would stay in negotiations with the government if it was willing but the process was appalling, labelling it a cheap political stunt.

The latest pay offer came after the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission recommended renewed negotiations last week.

"In good faith we agreed to negotiations last week in the industrial commission but the government has sabotaged those negotiations," he said.

The QIRC had been considering the pay situation until the Queensland Government launched legal action against an industrial court ruled the commission had power to award interim pay rises to public servants.

Mr Scott said the supreme court could hear the government's case later this week.