Coronavirus: Annastacia Palaszczuk ‘selling out frontline workers’, says union

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s own union has launched a rare attack on the Labor leader.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Richard Walker

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s own union has launched a rare attack on the Labor leader, accusing her of “selling out” frontline hospital workers in the grip of a pandemic by freezing bonuses already paid to white-collar bureaucrats.

In a scathing letter to Ms Palaszczuk, Australian Workers Union state secretary Steve Baker said hospital cleaners, security guards, wardsmen, food services workers and laundry staff had been left devastated and “totally disillusioned by the Labor ­government”.

After The Australian revealed the government was preparing to pay its 224,000 public servants a pay rise of 2.5 per cent and a one-off cash bonus of $1250, Ms Palaszczuk told the Today show that the pay rises were “on hold”.

Mr Baker said the decision was “bad policy on the run” and unfair to the frontline hospital workers who were protecting the community from the pandemic, ­despite being scared to go to work.

“It’s extremely disappointing, she’s an AWU Premier, the Right (faction) Premier, and she won’t return calls, she’s not engaging over the issue,” Mr Baker told The Australian.

“It shows a lack of empathy for these frontline staff.”

He said the wage increase was due on September 1 last year, and had been agreed in December, but the government and Queensland Health had been dragging their feet. Mr Baker said white-collar workers, such as bureaucrats working at government headquarters in Brisbane, had been paid their $1250 bonus in the past few weeks. “I don’t know how you justify public servant sitting in an office getting the recognition of a bonus (and not give it) to someone on the frontline trying to protect the community from this infection,” he said.

Asked on Monday whether she was concerned frontline hospital workers would miss out on the bonus, Ms Palaszczuk said no.

“No I don’t, because I made it very clear that they are frozen,” Ms Palaszczuk said. “Let me also make it very clear that the state is going to have to find a lot of money to pay for workers who are going to be working double shifts into the future, so every single dollar counts here … this is going to run for months, you only have to look at what’s happening overseas.”

Ms Palaszczuk is a member of the AWU, the most influential union in Queensland Labor’s Right faction.

Mr Baker has called for Ms Palaszczuk to meet the frontline workers to properly understand the “sacrifices they are making and the devastating impact your ­announcement has had on them”.

“AWU members simply cannot believe that a Labor Premier would sell out workers in this fashion at a time when they are risking their own safety and their family’s just by going to work each day,” Mr Baker said.

The Electrical Trades Union, aligned with the dominant Left faction, has also criticised Ms Palaszczuk’s decision.