Workers across eight councils are gearing up for a historic 24-hour strike on May 5 in what is set to be the biggest industrial action in local government in decades.
Council workers from Darebin, Greater Dandenong, Hobsons Bay, Hume, Maribyrnong, Melbourne, Merri-bek and Yarra, and their supporters, will meet at 10am at Victorian Trades Hall Council to hear speakers then march to Parliament House.
The strike will make history because changes to industrial laws under the Bob Hawke-Paul Keating Labor governments’ Prices and Incomes Accord and the shift to enterprise bargaining in the early 1990s prohibited workers from taking protected industrial action.
Now the Australian Services Union (ASU) Vic/Tas branch is using the new multi-employer bargaining system to raise workers’ wages and conditions in metropolitan Naarm and regional Victoria.
The ASU began the industrial campaigna on April 7 with a 24-hour strike by waste workers and street cleansing workers in Darebin, Hume and Merri-bek. After that union members in eight councils imposed bans.
Unionists taking action include workers in waste collection, street cleansing, mowing, libraries, parking enforcement and aged care. Industrial action includes partial work bans and the non-enforcement of parking fines, although the bans have been paused until the May 5 strike.
The workers are seeking a new enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) which includes an immediate 10% catch-up wage rise followed by a 4% rise for each of the next three years. The union wants the pay rise to be backdated to July last year, when the EBA expired.
The councils have not presented their workers with a wage offer.
ASU State Secretary Tash Wark told Green Left Radio that members had not had a wage rise for two years. An average council worker only earns about $70,000 and she said members are really feeling the pinch. “They have been losing about 7-12% in wages in real terms since 2021.”
Wark said pay rise was the most important issue. While some people want other changes in their workplaces, they were most concerned about their pay going backwards. The ASU has been pushing for 18 months for councils to be part of a multi-employer bargaining agreement, but most councils refused until now.
Workers at Wyndham City Council have voted to join the multi-employer agreement and will join the industrial action, making it the ninth council.
Despite council CEOs saying they respect the right of workers to take industrial action, Merri-bek and Hume used contract labour and labour hire workers to undermine the April 7 strike and the bans.
Merri-bek sent a step further; it notified the lowest paid council workers, home support workers, that they would have 66% of their pay docked and home maintenance workers would be docked 100% if they took part in industrial action. Merri-bek threatened the same to waste and street cleansing workers. Hume issued notices to waste services workers that their pay would be docked 15% for each day they take part in the bans.
Wark said docking pay from staff is “punitive and mean-spirited” and that it is very hostile behaviour to retaliate when “workers express their legal rights while still showing up to work … to minimise the adverse impact” on the community.
She said bans on waste collection had been the most visible action. But bans on mowing and libraries opening have helped demonstrate to the public the vital work members do each day.
In Maribyrnong, parking bans have caused daily ticket revenue to drop from $30,000 to $10,000. “The biggest takeaway has been that the community is with us,” Wark said.
Hume resident and Socialist Alliance member Zane Hayduk organised a protest outside a council meeting on April 27 to show that many residents support the council workers’ industrial action.
The union is also reporting a significant rise in membership since the industrial action began.
“Members are fired up,” Wark said. “While they regret the community disruption, they feel they have no choice but to take serious action because their real wages have fallen by up to 12%.
The union has slammed the Labor government’s plan to give mayors, deputy mayors and councillors a 20% raise in their allowances.
Socialist Alliance Merri-bek councillor Sue Bolton told GL said that mayors and councillors should not be given a rise above what council workers receive.
“Councils have been refusing to pay council workers adequately. The issue of bans and overflowing bins would be resolved if they supported their workers with a good agreement. Many council workers do essential but invisible work — until it stops. Councils need to value their work with a decent pay offer,” concluded Bolton.
