‘Contracts cannot be amended’: Australian Education Union NT

THE Northern Territory Government’s plan to freeze the pay of senior public servants appears to have hit a major hurdle with unions arguing it could be unlawful

Jarvis Ryan, AEU NT president, said the NT Government failed to consult with unions

THE Northern Territory Government’s plan to freeze the pay of senior public servants appears to have hit a major hurdle with unions arguing it could be unlawful.

Australian Education Union NT branch president Jarvis Ryan said the union had received legal advice saying the Government could not force public servant to sign contract variation that would see their pay frozen for three years.

“The legal advice we’ve had is that these contracts cannot be amended without the consent of the employee,” he said.

“That’s a pretty basic tenant of contract law and it confirms what we already believed which is that executive officers, be they corporate or principals, their wages can’t be frozen unless they sign and agree to a variation of their existing contracts.”

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Public servants on executive contracts were sent letters last week asking them to sign a contract variation that would see them give up annual pay rises that had already been locked in.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner speaks to the media. PICTURE: KERI MEGELUS

On Tuesday Chief Minister Michael Gunner said all of these public servants would be taking the pay freeze, and did not rule out sacking those who refuse to sign the contract variation.

But Mr Ryan said the Commissioner for Public Employment had subsequently advised him that the Government could not force people to sign.

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“The Acting Commissioner for Public Employment has advised us that the process at this stage is voluntary and that they’ve clearly had their own legal advice that employees need to agree to the variation in their contract,” he said.

“They’ve said they’re not putting pressure on people to do it. They have until the 30th of June to return those variations. Now they have said that they may wish to look at that depending on the take-up rate but I would expect that if the advice gets out that you don’t have to sign, the take-up rate probably will be pretty low because people on executive contracts aren’t stupid and most of them aren’t voluntarily going to sign up to a wage freeze.”

Jarvis Ryan, AEU NT president, said the NT Government failed to consult with unions

Mr Ryan said the Government had failed to consult with unions before the contract variation forms were sent out last week, and urged them to negotiate.

“It just seems that there’s a lack of leadership from the Government on this issue at the moment and that they don’t have their messaging clear because what the Chief Minister has said is quite different from the advice we’ve had from the Commissioner’s office and I think this is an important opportunity for Michael Gunner to clarify his position and reassure public sector officers that no-one will be sacked over this and no-one will be forced to sign a contract variation,” he said.

The Government hopes to save $25 million over three years by freezing the pay of politicians and public servants on executive contracts. About 50 of these senior public servants will also be sacked.

Treasurer Nicole Manison talks to the media. PICTURE: KERI MEGELUS

Treasurer Nicole Manison insisted the the government had sought legal advice about the plan but repeatedly refused to say whether and how it could be done legally.

Ms Manison would not confirm if the scheme was in fact voluntary, saying only that “we do expect executives to comply” with the government’s demand based on the authority of April’s Langoulant Review.

“We are going to implement this, we are looking at how you have to apply it through the contracts, it’s not straight forward, there is some complexity to it,” she said.

“But we are saying ‘We are government, we accepted this recommendation, we expect executives to comply’.”