Enterprise agreement rejected

Enterprise agreement rejected

By Russell Pickering

SYDNEY — A meeting of more than 300 Department of Public Works and Services (DPWS) wages staff in Granville in Sydney's west on September 3 overwhelmingly rejected the department's enterprise agreement offer.

After more than nine months of stalled negotiations, the DPWS's final offer, which linked productivity objectives to a 3% pay rise from the date of acceptance and another 2% from July 1997, was rejected as too little too late.

The department's intention to force acceptance of the offer was revealed weeks earlier, when it would agree to paid mass meetings to discuss the offer only on the condition that it could address the meetings first.

Despite a mixed response to the offer from meetings held earlier in regional centres, the Granville meeting agreed that the process of enterprise bargaining and the DPWS's stalling tactics meant a wage freeze for staff. The 3% on offer had been eaten up by inflation over the nine months since the last agreement lapsed.

Other government departments have entered agreements that give their wages staff higher pay rises that are backdated and are not linked to productivity.

The workers at the meeting reaffirmed their determination to achieve a just settlement. Negotiations will continue on September 12.

From GLW issue 246