Unions’ Victorian budget in reply: strikes
Public sector unions are preparing to take industrial action the day after Victoria’s Labor government hands down what is expected to be a horror budget.
Public sector unions are preparing to take industrial action the day after Victoria’s Labor government hands down what is expected to be a horror budget, amid claims long-serving staff with the emergency call-taking service will suffer under a new enterprise agreement.
The action, planned to begin from Wednesday, involves call centre workers represented by the Ambulance Union, United Firefighters Union, Communication Workers Union and United Workers Union.
It comes as the government faces similar action by nurses, paramedics and TAFE teachers.
The disputes are coming to a head as the government is being forced to confront fiscal reality when it hands down its 10th budget on Tuesday, with net debt projected to reach $177.8bn by 2026-27, and the public sector wage bill set to grow to $38.3bn over the same period – more than double the $19bn bill Labor inherited when it won government in 2014.
The showdown follows the government’s decision to cap public sector pay rises at 3 per cent despite a cost-of-living crisis and with inflation at 3.6 per cent.
The disagreement with the four unions representing Triple Zero Victoria call takers comes after the government spent hundreds of millions of dollars overhauling the organisation, previously known as the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority, following the deaths of 33 people between December 2020 and May 2022 who died while waiting for ambulances
The unions had reached an in-principle agreement with the Triple Zero over the EBA, and called off industrial action. But in the process of the agreement being drafted this week, unions said they learnt the terms had been interpreted to mean staff with more than a decade of service would receive the same classification as those with just one year of service.
“In good faith we temporarily halted our industrial action, but in the last 24 hours Triple Zero Victoria seem to have, we say incorrectly, reinterpreted what was agreed and negotiated, which sees our members drop down significantly in the pay structure,” Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said. “Typically, any time you negotiate a new pay structure, if you’ve been in the job for 10 years you transfer across relevant to your years of service. They’re telling people they go back to year one. It’s a big insult to the membership. They’re fuming.
“We are in the process of restarting some of our industrial actions from Wednesday.”
CWU industrial officer Sue Riley said that in the process of drafting the EBA, there was discussion with union members about their pay classification under the new structure. “It was discovered quite quickly that there was two completely different points of view about the years of service,” she said. “We were of the view that any employee of long standing should have their service recognised for the purpose of the new classification structure.
“What Triple Zero were saying was that the service had to be performed under the new structure.
“To sell this to the members was going to be hard enough … then to find this out, it’s just a slap in the face. We’ve given the 72 hours’ notice that we’ll be commencing industrial action on Wednesday.”
UFU secretary Peter Marshall similarly confirmed that Triple Zero Victoria had “put a new classification on the table after the deal was done”, and that members of his union would also be taking industrial action from Wednesday.
At this stage, the action is only expected to involve the wearing of union campaign T-shirts in place of uniforms, with the possibility of more significant steps if an agreement is not reached.
Multiple union sources expressed hope that former Fair Work Commissioner Julius Roe – who has been acting as an independent arbiter during the negotiations – would be open to help them achieve what they see as a fairer outcome for long-serving workers.
A spokeswoman for Emergency Services Minister Jaclyn Symes referred questions to a Triple Zero Victoria spokeswoman, who said: “No employee will be worse off financially under the new deal, and all will be better off over the life of the agreement.
“Any current agreement regarding years of service will be retained – in fact long-serving employees stand to be better off under the new deal.”
More Coverage
China blames Australia for fighter jet’s flare drop
China accused the RAAF P-8A Poseidon of ‘deliberately intruding into China’s airspace’ while Australia lodged an official protest over the incident that risked the lives of up to a dozen Australians.
1000 days: Albanese enters the election twilight zone
Anthony Albanese, who on Friday marks the 1000-day mark since the 2022 poll, has entered the election twilight zone with one thing on his mind – beating Peter Dutton and becoming the first Prime Minister since John Howard in 1998 to win a second term.