The PSA’s Public Sector Needs a Pay Rise campaign continues.
Following our day of action on the 8 June 2022 the government took the PSA to the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC). There was no negotiation about our wages, it was straight to the IRC.
On Friday, 22 July 2022, the PSA was in arbitration before a full bench of the IRC after the Government denied our wages claim, instead passing a new regulation temporarily changing its wages policy over the next two years to award Public Sector employees a three per cent pay rise. After the two years it will revert to the paltry 2.5 per cent that we have been dealing with since 2011.
On Friday the IRC, restrained by the Government’s unfair and unjust wages policy, awarded the state’s Public Sector workers a three per cent pay increase, which includes an increase to the superannuation levy, for one year from the first full pay period after 1 July 2022.
The Consumer Price Index, which will be announced on Wednesday 27 July 2022, is expected to be substantially higher than three per cent.
Friday’s decision proves the system is broken. The wages policy needs to change, so workers can negotiate for better pay and conditions not limited by the arbitrary wages cap that has applied for more than a decade.
Queensland has just handed down a four per cent pay increase for its Public Sector employees. This is proof that state governments can be more generous than the Perrottet Cabinet has been when awarding wage rises. This shows how little respect this government has for the workers who have steered the state through a succession of crises.
Rest assured, Friday’s decision is not the end of this battle. Your union is not stopping, and our fight continues for a fair pay rise and an end to a wages policy that becomes more and more unjust with every passing year.
There are few workers in the country who get to stipulate who their employer is. However, our members will have just this opportunity in March 2023, when NSW elects its 58th Parliament. We hope, when they enter the polling booth, PSA members remember how they have been treated by the Government and vote accordingly.