A contingent of the Community and Public Sector Union will encourage members to vote down a service-wide pay offer of 11.2 per cent over three years, claiming the union has been "weak" in negotiations with the Public Service Commission.
The emerging group of about 60, known as democracy4cpsu, has criticised the main public sector union for lacking aggression in the six-month-long process to negotiate a common pay rise for federal public servants. The union has not taken a stance on offers of 10.5 and 11.2 per cent, instead using majority votes to inform their bargaining position.
It is a process which the CPSU says puts members in "the driver's seat", but has been criticised as "ambivalent". It diverges from the approach taken by the Australian Services Union, a smaller union representing tax office staff, which rejected the offer outright.
The pay offers are well below a 20 per cent claim made by the CPSU in March, which it has remained quiet on in recent months. The Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher at the time dismissed the claim as "impossible" to meet.
"I thought the CPSU would be a braver union in this," a CPSU delegate in the Fair Work Ombudsman said.
Sean, an APS5 who asked for his surname name to be withheld, said he had been surprised by the union's "ambivalent" approach to pay after the APSC offered just over half of what the union had demanded.
"I expected them to come back and say, 'This pay rise is not good enough, we represent you as members, we've been campaigning on 20 per cent, we've been campaigning on real wage increases, we're going to come out and say that that's not good enough'."
He questioned whether the union's formal affiliation with the Labor Party had stifled its pay talks with the Albanese government.
Industrial action should be expanded, group says
The latest offer, tabled on August 29, would allow a pay lift of 4 per cent in March 2024, 3.8 per cent in 2025, and 3.4 per cent in 2026. While it slightly exceeds forecasts for the Wage Price Index, members are concerned about whether it will actually keep up with inflation.
Greg Brown, an APS4 union member in Services Australia said "public servants are doing it tough like workers across Australia at the moment".
"But if we accept the 11.2 per cent then we're only going to be worse-off in three years time at the end of this particular agreement," he said.
Mr Brown said the union should be preparing and communicating a strategy for expanded industrial action. The union has undertaken two rounds of low-impact action in Services Australia - including a one-hour strike - but has not escalated to 24-hour strikes, nor extended action to other agencies.
"So that would involve recruitment, to get membership levels up, and it would involve an escalation of industrial action towards APS-wide strike action, if that's what's needed to get a decent wage increase," Mr Brown said.
The CPSU has told members it would "need to move quickly" to escalate industrial action if the offer is voted down, and that this could cause delays to finalising enterprise agreements.
Tim Hume, an EL1 delegate and section councillor at the Bureau of Meteorology, also said he would support expanded industrial action, particularly given his agency had missed out on pay rises between 2014 and 2018.
"Even with modest action, we can probably get a slightly better deal," Mr Hume said. "We're not going to get a perfect deal, but I have a feeling that we could get a little bit better with not a lot of effort, that's my own view.
"And I don't necessarily know if the leadership thinks that, I think they're a little bit more afraid, perhaps."
Mr Hume said he was disappointed by the union's decision to disable the chat function in recent webinars explaining the offer, as he wanted to hear from other members.
In response, CPSU national secretary Melissa Donnelly said that since talks began "our members have been in the driver's seat of this bargaining campaign and that will continue to be the case".
"Our members were integral in creating our claim, in voting to endorse it, in voting down the first pay offer and in Services Australia voting in favour of, and taking, industrial action," she said.
"And now, another member poll will decide whether CPSU members accept or reject the package and decide our next steps."
Ms Donnelly said the union's membership had grown by more than 10 per cent since the bargaining campaign began. The union had 40,654 members at the end of the 2022 financial year.
She encouraged members to attend one of the scheduled webinars ahead of the pay-offer vote. The results will be published on September 28, when bargaining parties are due to meet again.
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