Darebin council staff refuse to work in demand for fair pay

Workers at Darebin Council are refusing to do most of their duties — including picking up rubbish — as they fight for better pay and conditions.

Rubbish could start piling up on the streets of Melbourne’s inner north as staff at a local council down tools over pay and conditions.

City of Darebin employees began a protected industrial action partial work ban on May 2, with participating workers refusing to work on almost all council operations such as street cleaning, litter pick up, park cleaning and more.

The protest comes after more than 200 council employees voted to reject their enterprise agreement offer and take action to demand pay rises, fairer workplace processes around disciplinary procedures and work vacancy options.

The Australian Services Union (ASU) has slammed the council’s leadership over an “aggressive and threatening” approach towards staff taking part in the protected industrial action after they were emailed a document that claimed their pay would be impacted.

According to ASU, the council’s FAQ-style document threatened lockouts of workers, docking of pay for participating in partial work bans and confused staff on their legal rights on participating in industrial action.

According to the Fair Work Commission, an employer cannot reduce payment for workers participating in a partial work ban without prior notice with the ASU claiming Darebin Council provided no notice.

ASU deputy branch secretary Tash Wark said the City of Darebin’s stance was “bizarrely hostile”.

“The information provided by the City of Darebin is unnecessarily obscure and designed to make workers fear for their livelihood and jobs, rather than provide good faith and truthful information,” Ms Wark said.

“This information is full of misunderstandings about the provisions of the Fair Work Act and its function, and is deliberately confusing in its wording … in many instances it is completely factually incorrect.”

The ASU claims that the organisation has repeatedly changed position on key items in employee’s enterprise agreements and failed to provide suitable compromise for workers, with the justification that their “financial position has changed”.

“The union has sought further detail to confirm whether this is truly the case, it does nothing to lessen the fact their position is outrageous,” Ms Wark said.

A spokesperson from City of Darebin said any increase to the offer made in the employee enterprise agreement would “impact job security for council staff”.

“With consideration to the current economic context, and significant financial pressure in both the community and for the organisation, council has made a fair and reasonable offer,” they said. 

They said the council rejected the claim that staff had been misled by internal communications regarding industrial action.

“Council supports union members’ right to choose to participate in protected industrial action.”