ELECTION PROMISES BULLETIN #5- Redeployment and Redundancy
ELECTION PROMISES BULLETIN #5- Redeployment and Redundancy – March 2019 (PDF version)
In October last year, the PSA wrote to all political parties to seek their position on issues important to our members.
One of the questions asked was, Will your party commit to a policy of mandatory redeployment that will effectively eliminate forced redundancies in the public sector?
The Berejiklian Liberal/National government has made it harder for public servants to seek redeployment my placing financial penalties in the path of those who don’t want to leave the Service, and placing the unrealistic timeframe of 3 months around any redeployment.
This is an issue which has affected thousands of workers across the Public Sector over the past 8 years. In response to our question, the government informed us that if re-elected PSA members will suffer more of the same.
In contrast, a Daley Labor government will restore previous policies that ensured a fair system for staff who were made excess. Prior to the change of government in 2011, Public Servants had the right to redeployment for 12 months and received the same package at the end of that time as if they chose to leave straight away.
Your rights when your job is privatised also changed when the Coalition Government introduced the Government Sector Employment Regulation 25A forcing all but a handful of workers to be transferred to the new private sector employer without access to a redundancy package. This saw life-long ADHC workers when they were transferred to NGOs receive a max transfer package of just 8 weeks.
With the Government Sector Employment Act, the union has found mobility measures for employer initiated transfers more flexible, however, not for employee initiated transfers. This has enabled a greater a reluctance of agencies to accept redeployed candidates as there is minimal compulsion for agencies to accept redeployees.
What have the Parties promised – Redeployment and Redundancy
| Party | Will your party commit to a policy of mandatory redeployment that will effectively eliminate forced redundancies in the public sector? |
| Labor | Yes. A Daley Labor Government will have a policy of mandatory redeployment which we will develop in government. |
| Liberals and Nationals | No. Support their existing policy |
| The Greens | Yes. Mandatory redeployment means workers can’t simply be laid off and then the work is outsourced. |
| Shooters, Fishers and Farmers | No, but support an improvement on government policy where a fair redundancy is paid if redeployment is not successful. |
If you want to see the correspondence from the political parties on these questions, they will be made available today at https://psa.asn.au/category/latest-news/what-shape/
If you want to improve your chances of keeping a government job during a restructure or privatisation, you will need to change the government.
SAVE THE STATE. CHANGE THE GOVERNMENT.
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