Coronavirus: ABC staff urged to vote to defer 2% pay rise

Morrison government urges ABC staff to vote yes to defer an imminent pay raise to show solidarity with other public servants.

ABC managing director David Anderson appears on a TV screen at the national broadcaster’s Ultimo headquarters. Picture: John Feder

The Morrison government is urging ABC staff to vote yes to defer an imminent pay raise to show solidarity with other public servants, journalists in commercial media, and the broader community making sacrifices during the coronavirus pandemic recession.

Employees of the broadcaster began voting on Monday on whether to vary their enterprise agreement to delay a 2 per cent rise, and fall into line with core government departments and dozens of agencies that have accepted a six-month deferral for wage rises.

The public sector union, however, is calling on ABC staff to reject the pay freeze, advising members they deserve the $5m in pay rises that are due next month.

The ABC ballot comes after staff at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, where 55 per cent are classified as executives, voted this month not to delay a 2 per cent pay rise next year after receiving a 2 per cent pay rise in May — six weeks after the Morrison government imposed a pandemic-induced deferral period for public sector pay that will last for 12 months.

That means executives at the corporate regulator, which oversees financial services and consumer credit, will pocket as much as $6800 per annum from the two pay rises.

ASIC staff, the vast majority of whom work in Sydney and Melbourne, are among the highest paid in the public sector.

The median base salary at the corporate regulator is estimated to be $110,000, compared with $86,436 in the Australian Public Service.

On Monday chairman of the House Economics committee, Victorian Liberal MP Tim Wilson, said he had recalled ASIC to appear next month to explain itself, including on “what possible basis they’ve given themselves a pay rise”.

The rejection of a pay pause by staff at ASIC, and the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, has drawn fire from senior government figures, who believe salary hikes are greedy and insensitive at a time of rising unemployment and when besieged staff at Centrelink and other frontline agencies are enduring a pay freeze.

Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Ben Morton. Picture: Kym Smith.

Ben Morton, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, said he was “disappointed” that some public sector agencies had voted not to amend their workplace agreements and had taken pay rises.

“This puts those agencies out of step with the wider Australian Public Service and community expectations,” Mr Morton, who has responsibility for the public sector, said. “It is the government’s expectation that the temporary wage increase deferral is applied to all agencies in the commonwealth public sector.

“I will be considering ways to ensure that the policy can still be implemented across the Public Service for those agencies that were unable or unwilling — it is only fair, reasonable and equitable.”

With the five-day ABC ballot under way, Mr Morton encouraged the broadcaster’s staff to consider voting yes to the wage freeze “as a demonstration of support for the majority of public servants and in line with wider community expectations”.

“It is the government’s expectation that the temporary wage increase deferral is applied to all agencies in the Commonwealth public sector,” he told The Australian.

Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher. Picture: Getty Images

In May Communications Minister Paul Fletcher wrote to the ABC, saying the government expected the ABC to investigate all options to pause wages in line with other government agencies.

In an email this month to staff, ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose said “the Minister asked us to consider the current situation across the media industry and the challenges other media organisations face, along with the Australian community, due to the exceptional economic consequences caused by COVID-19”.

ABC chair Ita Buttrose. Picture: Supplied

Ms Buttrose said the $5m saved from the six-month deferral would fund emergency broadcasting services and public interest journalism.

“The decision is yours. While this deferral will deliver a one-off savings benefit in (Fiscal Year 2021) of $5m, it will not assist the ABC to achieve the ongoing savings requirement of $41m per annum by (Fiscal Year 2022),” she wrote in the September 11 email.

The Community and Public Sector Union has condemned the wage pause proposal in light of 220 recent retrenchments at the broadcaster.

“Freezing the wages of ABC staff for six months will NOT save jobs,” CPSU ABC section secretary Sinndy Ealy said in an email to members on Thursday.

“The Australian economy is in a recession and suppressing wages will not lift economic growth. ABC staff have families to feed, bills to pay, and like many Australians may now find themselves to be the only bread winner in their household … It is disappointing the burden for this decision has been put on you. You deserve to get your 2 per cent pay increase in full.”

If the past six months have shown us anything, it's that the public sector is integral to Australia's success and response to the pandemic.

The government needs to be investing in public sector jobs, not cutting them.#auspol2020https://t.co/D3aKrIJURj

— CPSU (@CPSUnion) August 28, 2020

The Australian Public Service Commission told The Australian that 49 agencies — including the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority — had implemented the wage pause, while 13 would apply a freeze in new workplace agreements.

However, 11 non-APS agencies, including the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, were unable to implement a pause within the 12-month period because they had a wage increase that fell soon after the April decision and there was insufficient time to run a ballot for a change.

ASIC and the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex are two of three non-APS agencies that have workplace agreements that provide wage increases during the year-long hiatus, with the only way to apply a six-month pause being a ballot of employees to vary the arrangements. The third, AgriFutures, a small rural research and development agency, voted to accept a pay freeze.

Most of the time we are tied to our screens and using giant dishes to communicate with spacecraft orbiting other planets.
📡〰️〰️〰️🛰️🔴

It was fun to just lay back and think of a satellite orbiting above the Earth for a change.😉🛰️🌏#SatelliteSelfie #CSIROspace pic.twitter.com/r54CIltf0A

— CanberraDSN (@CanberraDSN) August 18, 2020

Last week, CSIRO employees approved a workplace agreement, from November, that includes a six-month wage freeze.

At ASIC, the top rate of pay for non-senior executive service staff under the workplace agreement — which covered 1969 employees at June last year — is now $172,175. The commonwealth two years ago freed the regulator from obligations to engage staff under the Public Service Act, allowing it to freely compete for talent in the market.

ASIC chairman James Shipton declined to comment.

In April the Morrison government imposed the six-month freeze for pay increases for non-senior executive service staff that fell due in the year starting April 14 to “ensure the deferral is shared equally by all APS employees”.

APS Commissioner Peter Woolcott. Picture: Kym Smith

APS Commissioner Peter Woolcott wrote to the heads of non-APS agencies in April and, according to a spokesman, “conveyed the government’s decision, as well as its expectation that they exercise all discretion to give effect to the -decision, where possible”.

In late July, Mr Shipton wrote an all-staff memo ahead of ASIC’s ballot on August 31 and September 1 to determine whether to vary its enterprise deal. “As we know, this year has been an extremely tough year. Bushfires, floods and the coronavirus had a significant impact on many Australians,” he wrote.

He said the nation was facing “the greatest economic challenge of many generations” as well as the “government’s enormous support for those suffering economic hardship” while ASIC employees “had the benefit of relatively stable employment conditions”.

At the time of the memo, ASIC’s most senior executives, with base salaries of up to $320,000, had deferred a wage increase and bonus for this year.