2020 - Present - Public Service Association

PSA Timeline: 2020 – Present

Year Information
2024 September 2024: PSA is currently running several campaigns: Child Protection in Crisis, Sheriff’s Officers’ Undervalued, Understaffed, Underpaid campaign, as well as campaigns on behalf of Special Constables, Fisheries Officers, Psychologists and others.
2024 August 2024: Public Sector pay negotiations continue. Premier Minns wants public servants back in the office but PSA says Working From Home (WFH) is here to stay for many members. Right to Disconnect law passed. City and Southwest Metro opens. Gender pay gap is slowly closing after years of union campaigning but still much more to do. Road death toll increase for the year is shocking. Gov needs to do much more on road safety. PSA’s Junee office opens.
2024 July 2024: Housing and Cost of Living continue to be a major concern to most Australians. Sheriff’s Officers take industrial action as part of the PSA’s Undervalued, Understaffed, Underpaid campaign. PSA WIN for members in Transport (link to bulletin). Child Protection workers continue walkouts across the state. PSA runs Domestic and Family Violence campaign calling on government for better funding, more support for victims and harsher penalties for offenders. PSA campaigns to keep Mount Druitt DV centre staffed and open. Industrial Court re-established in Bridge St, Sydney.
2024 June 2024: PSA pushes for improved public service pay offer for 2024.  NSW Parliament creates Industrial Manslaughter laws after years of union campaigning. Unions call for an end to “Junior Wages” for workers aged 18-21. Essential workers leaving Sydney for other states (especially Queensland) as housing becomes too expensive for those on the median salary. State Budget includes record funding for “social housing”. After the PSA’s anti-privatisation message at the 2023 state election, the privatisation of public services and assets appears to be extremely unpopular with NSW voters. Private schools continue to be over funded while public schools are underfunded.  
2024 June 2024: PSA pushes for improved public service pay offer for 2024.  
2024 May 2024: Launch of PSA campaign “Crisis in Child Protection”. The PSA is demanding better wages and conditions for Child Protection Caseworkers as the government finds it impossible to recruit and retain Child Protection workers. With a huge number of vacancies and wages that have not kept up with the private sector, thousands of children at risk are being left without support. Hundreds of foster children are living in motels with private sector contract workers. PSA and other unions win tougher laws on knife crime. PSA campaigns for tougher sentencing for domestic and family violence offenders. PSA Annual Conference celebrates 125th anniversary. 
2024 April 2024: Average house prices and weekly rents hit new record pushing more people into homelessness and keeping the cost of living as the number one issue for most Australians.  Floods again bring PSA members in SES to the rescue. The Minns government announces $148m in education budget cuts due to falling public school enrolments.
2024 April 2024: Child Protection workers begin to take industrial action in specific locations with a state-wide walkout planned for 8 May. 
2024 March 2024: The Federal Labor government announces super will be paid on federal paid parental leave. PSA partners with OSARA Health to offer members and their families cancer care. 
2024 February 2024: The Powerhouse Museum closes for refurbishment. PSA protests the lack of a plan and the relocation of members to other sites.

 

2024 February 2024: PSA continues to campaign for better pay and job security for members working in several agencies, including the Sheriff’s Office and Special Constables. After many years of getting nowhere with the Coalition government, the PSA’s more productive relationship with the Minns government is more likely to yield results.
2023 December 2023:The PSA’s Child Protection in Crisis campaign starts to take shape.
2023 December 2023: While prices continued to rise for most goods and services, annual CPI inflation has fallen from a peak of 7.8 per cent in December 2022, to 4.1 per cent in December 2023.
2023 November 2023: After years of PSA campaigning against private prisons, the NSW Government announces that Junee Correctional Centre will come into the public sector once the current private contract expires in early 2025. The PSA will continue to campaign for the return of Parklea Correctional Centre.
2023 October 2023: Australian Indigenous Voice referendum was held on 14 October 2023. NO Vote was 60 per cent.
2023 August 2023: PSA campaigns for a YES vote in the upcoming Voice to Parliament referendum.
2023 June 2023: NSW Government offers a 4.5 per cent wage increase (including 0.5 per cent superannuation increase). This is accepted by the PSA membership. This is the highest annual wage rise in 20 years.
2023 May 2023: The PwC tax scandal is an ongoing scandal involving PwC’s abuse of Australian Government secrets to enrich itself and its corporate clients. PwC, and other Big Four accounting firms, give advice to governments on writing tax law, and also corporations seeking to avoid those laws. The PSA opposes the inappropriate use of consultants and believes public service work should be done by public servants. The PSA is pushing the government to cease the improper use of consultants.
2023 May 2023: The PSA wins permanent positions for thousands of schools’ members.
2023 May 2023: Australia is experiencing a cost-of-living crisis brought on by high inflation and years of stagnant wage growth. New NSW premier Chris Minns and a number of ministers attend PSA Annual Conference signalling a much-improved relationship between the PSA and government. The NSW Government amends the state constitution to protect Sydney Water and Hunter Water from future privatisation.
2023 May 2023: WHO declares end to covid emergency. Estimated 20 million people dead.
2023 April 2023: The PSA also called on both major parties to convert thousands of temporary staff in schools into ongoing permanent positions.
2023 April 2023: During the state election campaign, the PSA campaigned around several issues including the following: The restoration of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC); The scrapping of the wages cap and the “efficiency dividend”; A commitment to job security with no forced redundancies; An end to the inappropriate use of casuals, temporary staff, labour hire and consultants; The repeal of the Government Sector Employment (GSE) Act, replacing it with modern legislation in consultation with public sector unions.
2023 March 2023: Labor wins the NSW state election on 25 March 2023 with a minority government, ending 12 years of Liberal-National coalition government. Chris Minns becomes the 47th Premier of NSW.
2023 March 2023: Unions NSW are running their own campaign, Essential Workers Deserve Better, but have also embraced the PSA’s Privatisation Hurts Everyone campaign, in particular, our campaign against the possible privatisation of Sydney Water. The public almost unanimously are outraged by the suggestion that water could be privatised.
2023 February 2023:  The PSA’s seven-week state election campaign, Privatisation Hurts Everyone, kicked off in early Feb. After years of campaigning against the privatisation of public services and assets, the general public’s perception of how privatisation has had a negative impact on public services and how the sale of public assets has only ever transferred public wealth into private hands is finally being better understood. PSA’s TV ads go live on social media (Facebook and YouTube) and later during Channel Nine 6pm news. https://psa.asn.au/privatisation-hurts-everyone/videos/ The NSW Labor Opposition is campaigning against privatisation, having often been in favour of it when they were last in government.
2022 December 2022: PSA commissions two TV ads as part of our state election campaign.
2022 Australia has experienced almost 10 million cases of COVID-19 with a total of 13,000 deaths. Lismore Flood Inquiry makes a number of recommendations and is critical of government failures. Government announces it will axe Resilience NSW and considers merging certain functions of the SES and RFS.
2022 PSA Day of Action around the state. Thousands of members strike in support of the PSA’s The Public Sector Needs a Pay Rise campaign.
2022 In May, the Australian Labor Party, led by Anthony Albanese, wins the federal election.
2022 The Public Sector Needs a Pay Rise campaign launched as the cost of living starts to increase at a much higher rate than experienced for many years. The PSA continues to campaign for the Coalition government’s public sector wage cap to be removed and that the power to set wage increases is handed back to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission.
2022 PSA announces financial support for members impacted by floods, similar to the support offered during the bushfires in 2020.
2022 Lismore floods on 28 Feb peaking at a record 14.4 metres. Lismore flooded again on 30 March.
2022 COVID-19 infections jump up dramatically in January 2022 with the pandemic continuing to impact on all aspects of life in Australia.
2021 NSW Police announces closure of Police Radio at Penrith putting 70 jobs in jeopardy. After a quick, well-organised PSA campaign, the Police cancelled the move.
2021 When Premier Gladys Berejiklian resigns over ICAC investigations, she is replaced by Dominic Perrottet, a zealous advocate for privatising state assets.
2021 PSA pressure forces then Treasurer Dominic Perrottet to abandon his plan to limit the public sector pay rise to 1.5 per cent.
2021 NSW undergoes a more severe lockdown, which starts in June and is tapered out by December. Large numbers of people work from home, an option not available to many PSA CPSU NSW members. COVID-19 is largely kept out of prisons, with a breakout in September contained.
2021 The PSA CPSU NSW election, postponed due to COVID-19, is held. Stewart Little is re-elected as  General Secretary, with Troy Wright returned as Assistant General Secretary. The membership elects a new President; Nicole Jess from Corrective Services.
2020 PSA Women’s Council Celebrates 90 years
2020 Union pressure and the aftermath of bushfires keeps Forestry Corporation of NSW in public hands.
2020 After a sustained campaign by the PSA and other groups the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo is saved from closure.
2020 A number of PSA members in Police Aviation get a huge windfall when thousands of dollars in underpayments are discovered.
2020 The CPSU NSW gets coverage in the state’s newest – and largest – prison, the Clarence Correctional Centre.
2020 COVID-19 forces a lockdown in NSW. Union members in prisons take steps to keep the pandemic out of gaols, while schools throughout NSW switch to home-learning. Events such as PSA CPSU NSW Annual Conference, and the election for union officeholders are cancelled.
2020 As COVID-19 arrives in Australia, members work on through a pandemic, both in the community and working from home. The Association’s membership  climbs back over 38,000.
2020 Fires grip large parts of NSW. PSA CPSU NSW members in the Rural Fire Service, Forestry Corp, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Corrective Services, Housing and Fire & Rescue are put to work fighting the blazes and helping in their aftermath. Sadly, a member from TAFE is among the 34 people killed.

 

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