By Sue Bull
CANBERRA — On April 3, 400 public servants met to endorse an in-principle agreement reached with the ACT government by the Community and Public Sector Union, and to end their industrial action. The agreement consists of a 10.1% pay increase over 30 months — 7.1% budget funded and 3% to be found through productivity cuts.
CPSU branch secretary Cath Garvan said that although the agreement was not what she had hoped for, it was "far better than what we confronted last August".
The agreement now includes four threshold issues. The first is that there be no involuntary redundancies. This is a commitment that the federal Labor government never gave to Commonwealth public servants.
Secondly, the 3% productivity gains will be paid to all public servants rather than being calculated on an agency by agency basis with different payments to different agencies. While finding the 3% savings is not going to be easy, the union argues that no agreement could be reached without some compromise on this issue.
Third, there will be no reprisals against individual CPSU members.
Finally, there will be no consideration of privatising information technology services before December 1996.
The overwhelming majority of CPSU members at the meeting supported the in-principle agreement; only five voted against it. A mass meeting of members on April 17 will decide whether to ratify the final version.
All 16 unions involved in the ACT government dispute are now finalising agreements with their members.