CSIRO staff took protest action in Melbourne and Geelong on June 13 over stalled enterprise bargaining agreement negotiations. The CSIRO Staff Association is part of the Community and Public Sector Union.
The association is rejecting management's latest offer, claiming it is a cut in staff members' current
conditions and includes an insufficient pay increase of 4%, which would not even cover inflation.
The protest was also called over a CSIRO decision to disproportionately cut research in response to a service-wide cut of $63 million announced in the federal budget.
A CSIRO Staff Association media statement explained that agricultural research has been affected severely, with two critical regional laboratories having had to close.